Online French film festival attracts 300,000 users

Launched on Jan 14 in France and New York simultaneously, the festival lasted through Jan 19 and brought in nearly 40,000 views for all films involved.  On average, each film was viewed 1,805 times. More than 1.3 million pages were seen, surpassing the hopes of the organisers.

With participants across 171 countries, the website and films were available in 10 different languages including  Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian.

In terms of visits, Brazil, the US, Russia, Mexico and France came out on top while Brazil, Russia, Colombia and Mexico (four territories where the films were free) held the highest number of views. Paying territories contributed 44.8% of viewings while free territories made up 55.2%. Free territories were made possible thanks in part to Essilor Varilux and uniFrance Films.

Three prizes were awarded in the categories of The Public Prize, The International Press Prize and The Prize of the 35 Foreign Bloggers.

The Public Prize, voted on by the internet users logged on to the site,  went to All That Glitters by Géraldine Nakache and Hervé Mimram and Keren Marciano’s Memoirs of a Disturbed Young Lady.

The International Press Prize, voted for by a jury of 20 foreign journalists, was awarded to Lea Fehner’s Silent Voices, with special awards forAxelle Robert’s feature The Wolberg Family and Hendrick Dusollier’s short film Babel.

The Prize of the 35 Foreign Bloggers was given to Nicolas Saada’s Spy(ies) and Charlotte Joulia’s short As the Rain was Falling.

The three-winning feature films will be aired on all Air France flights for the next six months starting in April.

Dates of the second edition of myFrenchFilmFestival.com are yet to be announced.