It was a team with all smiles that came to present We should have gone to Greece last summer at the Lama festival. Since then, the previews have followed one after another, on the island as well as on the continent, with, each time, a great reception from the public. “People really need to laugh. Especially in these difficult times” recently confirmed the co-writer and actor Pierre-Marie Mosconi.
However, if there is one who has a little less desire to laugh, it is Fabrice Ferchouli, general director of the independent distribution house Moonlight. Indeed, after being released in island theaters on November 6, the film has, since Wednesday, November 13, been distributed throughout the continent, on a network of 226 copies, that is to say as many theaters where he is projected.
If the geographical distribution is not very surprising, with a strong concentration in the south, it is surprising in inner Paris. A single room projects We should have gone to Greece : the Pathé Aquaboulevarda multiplex located in the 15th arrondissement. “And again, thanks to the results of the previews, the marketing that accompanies the film and the advanced release in Corsica, we managed to obtain around ten screens on the outskirts of Paris. We corrected the situation“, explains Fabrice Ferchouli.
Several factors
In fact, from the very beginning, the film was not even supposed to be shown in these theaters in the Paris suburbs. The director of Moonlight sees this above all as a positioning problem: “The programmers see the film as a regional comedy. It’s the audience they’re targeting, not the one in Paris.” A mishap that the film experienced Bodin's in Thailand in 2022. In two weeks, it had garnered 910,000 entries, including only 23,000 in Île-de-France. In the end, the film did 1.6 million entries: “We signed up straight away for such a journey. From memory, The Bodin's was screened in two Parisian theaters. There, we feel an even stronger rejection for our film.“
The distributor would have liked at least two more rooms: “I would have liked to see the film at the UGC les Halles and at the Pathé Wepler for example.”
Another reason given was the congestion of releases with around twenty films including Gladiator IIthe new Claude Lelouch and Xavier Beauvois, The Kingdom by Julien Colonna or even a comedy with Audrey Lamy. “It can work but almost every week, except in the middle of summer, there is congestion. On the contrary, we hope to benefit from this strong and competitive market.”
The director of Moonlight is convinced that the position of his distribution company on the market played a role: “On has existed for 3 years. We are perhaps not yet powerful enough to impose ourselves on such a market“.
His disappointment is all the greater as he is convinced that the film could find its audience in Paris with the large diaspora living in the capital.
“It’s a feelgood and family film. It’s the audience that we vise”insists Fabrice Ferchouli who still believes in mobilizing spectators. Indeed, if the film does not make a splash at the Aquaboulevard, it could be shown in more theaters in Paris from next Wednesday.
France
