Universal Film & Television Journal’s Amir Ganjavie interviewed Julien Razafindranaly who has been a Head of Sales for Films Boutique for almost four years, where he is responsible and involved in the sales strategy that they established for the films they represent.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Are you involved in the acquisition of the films?
Julien Razafindranaly (JR): Our COO, Gabor Greiner, oversees our acquisitions together with our CEO, Jean-Christophe Simon. They have been working together for more than a decade and set the tone and direction of our line-up. That being said, as we work on a limited amount of films most of us are solicitated in the sense that our colleagues want to make sure that they can count on everyone’s enthusiasm for all our films.
(UM): And in your capacity, what kind of movies do find are easier for sales? Is there any formula or is it very unpredictable?
(JR): I guess we are all looking for this formula but I’m not sure there is one. One can always see some tendencies but in the end the film industry is a prototype industry, and each film will have a different life and career than the other ones. It is an element that makes it quite exciting to do the type of work that we do. At Films Boutique we represent auteur, director-driven films that are made for the big screen and our experience is that original films with a strong cinematic vision or concept will usually find their audience. But again, that’s a tendency, not an exact formula.
(UM): And in arthouse cinema, how important is star power for non-English language films?
(JR): There are many elements in a movie that can participate in its success, and stars – if you can have some – are an asset. They are an important element in your movie that helps generate attention around it. At the end of the day, we are in a very competitive market. Distributors, festival programers, critics, exhibitors all have only so much time at their hands and they must make their decision about which movies they are going to see and eventually buy, program or write about.
If you have known actors in your movie, festival programmers, distributors and the audience ultimately might remember your film more easily. And you might get a more favorable reception from the media, as established actors are more likely to be interviewed and mentioned in the press or online. So, in the end it might come out as an advantage for you. But again, it’s only one element and not a recipe for success as on the other hand you have plenty of films with relatively unknown casts who do very well, especially among 1st and 2nd-time filmmakers.
(UM): And what’s the importance of festival success to film sales? Is it more important to be at a festival like Cannes?
(JR): There are two ways to look at it. Cannes always generates a lot of attention and desire from everybody. And in terms of media coverage, Cannes is second to none. This is very valuable for people like us because it helps those of ours films that screen there to be seen from buyers, sales agents, fellow producers, festival programmers, as well as journalists, critics and film enthusiasts who are attending the festival. And Cannes attracts a lot of people, so you have a greater chance for you film to get seen and reviewed if it premiers in Cannes than at a smaller regional festival, for instance, that can also be fantastic for you but will offer a different experience. That’s just a fact. Cannes matters to us also for it’s marketplace, the Marché du Film, which is the most important place of business for film trade in the world. It’s the biggest industry event of the year with over 14.000 attendees in 2023. So, of course, if your film plays in Cannes and you make it fit in this market, it is a lot of film professionals that can be made aware about it. Of course, the same result can happen in many other places, but the media and industry attention that Cannes can bring to your film is relatively unique.
On our end, we do work closely with many other festivals in pretty much all the countries of the world, because every international, regional or national festival matters to us and our films dearly. They have proven to be precious and valuable launchpads and we always aim at the most adapted regional premieres for our films, to maximize their visibility and career on all continents. That is typically where having a sales agent will matter for filmmakers, as we have an important network of international, regional and national festivals with which we work regularly and that are strong allies to promote our movies. Since it is pretty much an endless network of events, as a filmmaker you might not know that in this other part of the world there is a festival that’s going to be important because distributors are watching films there and that if you make it into the program 15 selected distributors will get to see your movie, and suddenly the chances for this movie to be picked up for distribution are mulitplied. That’s why festival strategy is very important, to make sure the films travel. So Cannes matters very much, yes, but there is an immense and vivid ecosystem of festivals all around the globe that are instrumental in the life of every movie.
(UM): And with promotion/marketing do you use standardized trailers and posters or do you individualize them for the marker?
(JR): As a sales company, our job is to create a sales and marketing strategy for a film that will be different from any other film.
It’s important that your poster stands out and that people remember it when they see this particular artwork we decided on. It’s important it stays somewhere in the minds of the people you’re trying to reach. The work we do on that side is what we call B two B, meaning that the posters we do might be different from the posters distributors will use to talk to their local audience. Like, the expertise of the Turkish distributor is not the same as ours or this of the French distributor because they know that with a certain type of visual certain films have had success in the past in their specific territory; it might be wise to orient a film differently, focusing on the characters here, or maybe more on beautiful landscapes you have in your movie there, or any other things that can make the audience relate.
We work nowadays also a lot on social media also, with short clips, edits, and posts because it became important to be present there as well.
(UM): With globalization, it seems like most countries follow the same kinds of trends. I’m curious about how the homogenization of the market has impacted sales.
(JR): It’s difficult to answer because, in general, certain trends in every industry are being followed, and outside of those trends, there is plently of room for exceptions, things that happen almost magically at times. We are just not an industry doing standardized items like cars or pens. We are dealing with artistic creations that are always different from one another, even a sequel will have a different life than another episode of the same franchise.
At the moment there is more tension on our market because of various factors. A lot of people mentioned the health and safety protocols that were put in place with COVID-19, the closing of cinemas, the increasing amount of people having trouble making both ends meet… We could also mention the change of habits in the last 10-15 years with the apparition of smartphones and what they have done to the attentional capacity of the public as well as the new world of entertainment they’ve been offering. There is a competition with TV series also, as the quality (and quantity) of TV shows has drastically improved. All those factors lead to a drop in cinema admissions, though things are starting to get better than the 2020, 2021 and 2022 years.
Because the market is tensed, I assume that many actors in our business are trying to lower their risks and try to find some safer films to bet on – if that is possible at all with movies. It has always existed but if a film starts to gather unanimous praises from the critics at a festival, distributors will start to compete to acquire it, as they know they’ll be able to count on great reviews for their local releases. They know that festivals will want to play it as they want to give their audience a chance to see the film that was so much talked about, and they expect high revenues from such a release. And of course, if that happens, you have a competition, with a demand that goes through the roof on the market, with distributors fighting against one another in their respective territories, leading to what we call beating wars. This means that the prices for those films tend to go sensibly higher than what would one have expected their value to be on the market. In that sense you can look at a certain concentration when everybody wants the same film. That is where it is of paramount importance to be able to count on a wide network of distribution companies and festivals, as their variety and diversity allow for all other films that might not be the tip of the iceberg to be programed and seen globally.
The experience we make at Films Boutique is that there is still room for discoveries, there is room for 1st to 2nd time filmmakers, as we work with them all the time. They arrive on the market and the industry might not have seen them coming, but we manage to offer the right exposure for a film at festivals and suddenly it is noticed, we manage to get it seen, to get it reviewed and now your film has an international career and travels the world. That’s the work we do, together with our PR, another key person in the launch of the films.
(UM): Can you speak on the relationship between the writer/director or producer and the sales agent?
(JR): It’s a human relationship, so it involves quite a lot of communication, discussions and sometimes even disagreement. When we decide to represent a film we have certain ideas already about how we want to position it, which elements in it we want to bring forward, those we might rather not want to underline. About that we discuss with our filmteams ahead of the premiere, before starting to create marketing materials. We will always ask our teams if they have ideas, or elements in the film that are particularly dear to them, but ultimately our goal is to maximize the chances for the film to be seen and sometimes we might disagree with our film teams on the way to achieve that. If we happen to get there, that’s where it is important to be able to communicate freely and openly.
The work we (and distributors) do, is a fulltime work. That means, if you are a filmmaker, you’ve already spent a lot of time and energy working on the creative side of things and the making of your movie itself (writing, rewriting, making directional choices, making choices about your set design, making choices about your casting, about the crew, etc.). And it can be a lot to also start doing your trailer, poster, and other marketing elements yourself; that’s where we come into the picture. Everything we do is always done with the approval of the producer/filmmaker. We never release any marketing materials without the approval of our talents or producers. As mentioned before when we disagree – and this does not happen too much – we have a discussion and we find a solution collectively. It’s a creative process. Our work is not only about buying and selling films. You do bring a lot of input, creative input, and brainstorming from all the team of your sales company to try and find the best way to promote a movie.
(UM): Can you speak about how the arrival of streamers has affected sales?
(JR): They’ve been here now for a while and they’ve opened new opportunities for films to be seen. There is a variety of streamers, you have a lot of smaller companies everywhere, but you have a handful of global brands. They have at times been strong competitors against traditional distributors and studios. For us they have been great partners to release films like DIVINES or AND TOMORROW THE ENTIRE WORLD more recently and they have allowed those films to travel globally. But a relatively limited number of streamers can acquire your films for worldwide exhibition when on the other side of the spectrum, you have a very large network of independent distribution companies in this world that allow for more diversity. So we do work with streamers but we do not acquire films with the primary aim to sell them to platforms, and we depend very much on the diversity of our eco-system, which is why a company like Films Boutique works with all actors of the sector: streamers, distributors, festivals, TV stations, Inflight rights, institutionals, etc… to guarantee our films the widest distribution opportunities.
Also for the type of films we represent it is mostly in the theatrical market that their value is first created, which is why we are primarily focusing on theatrical. It is the marketing efforts put in the theatrical release, the campaign with its advertising, posters, press, etc.. that create the value of the film for the following scope of rights, VOD in the first place.
(UM): With the recent success of the counter-marketing of Barbie and Oppenheimer has that changed your strategy for sales and distribution?
(JR): We are sales, we don’t release the films ourselves, so we don’t target the audience. Most of the time, it would be the distributors who work with us, who will come up with those ideas to advertise our movies for the public. Sometimes they use our marketing materials, sometimes they adapt them to their specific market. Everyone’s goal is to get their movie seen. Of course, if you are doing a film that has the same name as the most famous doll in the world, it helps. But most independent films don’t have this marketing hack. But if you have a movie about a certain topic that would allow you to do some grassroots marketing, to reach out to communities in your country or territory to help promote the fil, because this movie will resonate within those communities. And then, you will have an unexpected reserve of audience coming to see your film first, but also talking about it. And that’s where word of mouth is particularly important for the films we represent.
The biggest challenge nowadays is that, unfortunately, very few cinemas allow films enough time for word of mouth to pick up, because if you don’t sell after a few days, usually your movie’s going to be replaced by another one at the cinemas. But we have recently had successes that stayed very long at the box office in certain countries. For example, we had the Moroccan film The Blue Caftan by Maryam Touzani which was in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, that was a huge success in Greece. The film picked up awards at the Athens Film Festival was released shortly after and after many weeks at the cinemas managed to make 20.000 admissions, which is a lot for an independent film in Greece. But again, unfortunately, it’s more the rare scenario these days because most films don’t get this chance to stay and have a second or third week to be talked about.
(UM): My last question is about diversity in sales because it is important, but it with challenges. For example, I see some movies can’t be distributed because they’re not politically correct, or they’re not considered appropriate by other cultures.
(JR):I think it’s great that the question of diversity is being brought upfront – at least in our Western part of the world – because it leads people to start to think about it. It allows their awareness on the topic to grow.
At Films Boutique, we work on the world scale, and those discussions will happen on different levels depending on the country you are in. You have countries that are more open than others on certain topics and the other way round and within those countries you have people trying to raise the awareness, often against the moral, political or religious authorities of the territory they live in.
And films can help open doors. We just mentioned THE BLUE CAFTAN and I should come back to it as Maryam and her producers managed to receive national support from the Centre du Cinéma Marocain for a film that revolves around a couple dealing with the hidden homesexuality of the husband, showing that films can help move the lines around what is considered “correct” or “appropriate”.
Sometimes also it will be the people’s reception to a certain movie that will help move those lines. We can take the example of GREEN BORDER by Agnieszka Holland that suffered the most hainous and unjustified attacks in her home country of Poland, sometimes from the hights level of the state even. With some people in office even trying to censor the film, and suddenly the Polish people go on the streets to show their support to the filmmaker and her film, to freedom of speech and suddenly you have over 130.000 people who go watch the film on its opening weekend, and one should mention that just a few days later the reactionary governement was voted out.
In any case we do not bother too much about the political correctness of the films when we acquire them and when we work on their release, we will always try our best to make them travel, even to places where it might have seemed impossible to get to.
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