Latest in France

Alice Diop’s Saint Omer has been selected as France’s entry to the best international film category. The drama was among five features shortlisted for the honor out of 33 submissions alongside Eric Gavel’s Full Time, Lise Asoka and Roman Gueret’s The Worst Ones, Alice Winocour’s Paris Memories and Mia Hansen-Love’s One…

EXCLUSIVE: French director Alice Diop's breakout feature Saint Omer has secured distribution in a raft of territories for Paris-based Wild Bunch International (WBI) following its Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize win. In Western Europe, the film has been sold to the U.K. (Picturehouse), Italy (Minerva Pictures)…

The merger of French broadcasters TF1 and M6 has been abandoned. In the past few minutes, the channel’s owners have said the pair have called off the plan after appearing in front of the French Competition Authority earlier this month. “Following the debates with the Authority and despite the additional remedies…

France has unveiled the five pre-selected feature films in the running to be the country's Oscar submission. They are: Full Time by Eric Gravel (int’l sales. B For Film) The Worst Ones by Lise Asoka and Romane Gueret (int’l sales, Pyramide Films) Paris Memories by Alice Winocour (int’l sales, Pathé International) Sain…

French broadcaster TF1 and pay-TV giant Canal+ are locked in a fresh dispute over carriage fees related to the latter's distribution of TF1's free digital terrestrial television (DTT) channels. Canal+ normally carries TF1 and its channels TFX, TF1 Séries Films and LCI as part of the offering of its TNT Sat service…

Jean-Jacques Sempé, the French cartoonist best known for the Le Petit Nicolas (Little Nicholas) children's books, died Thursday. He was 89. The mischievous schoolboy who is constantly getting into scrapes in and out of school but somehow always comes out on top was inspired by Sempé's own childhood memories. Hollywood…

French senators approved controversial government legislation abolishing the country's 89-year-old TV license fee in the early hours of Tuesday morning after a two-hour late-night debate. The 348-member upper house, in which centre-right affiliated members hold the majority, voted in favor of the…

The French government's controversial move to abolish the country's 89-year-old TV license fee is due to be voted on by France's upper house this week. The ending of the fee, currently set at 138 euros ($141) a year, is included in wider budget rectification legislation tackling the cost-of-living…

International sales agents Hengameh Panahi, Grégoire Melin, producers Philippe Rousselet, Didar Domehri and directors Jacques Audiard and Michel Gondry have been named as the members of France's new-look Oscar committee. They will be joined by veteran Gaumont executive Ariane Toscan du…

France's TF1 Group has posted a positive set of results for the first half of 2022, as Covid-19 pandemic challenges which weighed on turnover in 2020 and 2021 continue to subside. The results followed news on the Wednesday (July 27) that the France's competition authority had raised concerned about…

France has overhauled the composition of its Oscar selection committee for the second time in three years. Under the move, the heads of the Cannes Film Festival, export agency Unifrance and the César Academy will no longer have an automatic place on the committee. The changes were announced in the French government's…

The proposed merger between French broadcasting groups TF1 and M6 has hit a potential obstacle after France's competition authority raised concerns about the deal. Leading commercial broadcasters TF1 Group,  M6 Group and their respective parent companies Bouygues and the RTL Group first announced they were in merger ne…