email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

Brahim Chioua • Managing director of Wild Bunch

"Doing what we love and continuing to do it"

by 

Cineuropa zooms in on French company Wild Bunch – which has become an important force in the European film industry since its creation in 2002 – in an interview with its co-founder and current managing director Brahim Chioua, at the Dijon Film Meetings organised by the ARP.

Cineuropa: What is Wild Bunch’s development strategy?
Brahim Chioua: We still have the same model as a distribution, co-production, financing and European development company with the territories where we already operate: France (Wild Bunch Distribution, Wild Side and Filmo TV), Italy (Bim Distribuzione) and Germany (Wild Bunch Germany/Central Film Verleih). In Holland and Belgium (Wild Bunch Benelux), we only have distribution agreements.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Why don’t you consider simultaneous releases on the three European markets of France, Germany and Italy?
We don’t make the same films. In general, they’re adapted to their markets and are released differently. Of course, we pass on our advertising campaigns for releases, but each distributor redoes their own campaign, chooses the dates which are not ideal or identical on these three territories. A simultaneous release could be a good idea for genre films where video is important, where piracy is detrimental, but it’s not the case generally.

What is your opinion on the state of the movie theatre market?
Today, theatres are doing well pretty much everywhere, perhaps even better in France than elsewhere. I think theatres will retain their specificity. Other ways of watching films are changing more. Nowadays, there isn’t the same room for everything in theatres and that’s why the other methods of circulation are important and the distribution windows as they are applied today are not necessarily the best way to consume and access the whole range of films.

There are films which are released on a 10-15 print-run and are not accessible to most of the population, as well as films of diversity which don’t necessarily reach theatres and are not financed by television networks. Canal + doesn’t buy all films. For these films, even if it isn’t a priority, it’s a matter for discussion.

Among international sellers, Wild Bunch seems to have best weathered the recent crisis. Why?
We remain strong because we have good foundations and an outstanding team headed by Vincent Maraval. However, in terms of our line-up and access to products, we’re not the ones with the most resources. We get by okay, but we’ve suffered and we continue to suffer like everyone due to the financial crisis in general and the poor state of this business internationally with problems existing on a number of territories today when it comes to film financing.

Will you be able to continue the rapid growth you’ve enjoyed since your launch?
We’ve slowed down in 2010 and our turnover will be lower than the previous year. This is down to the after-effects of the crisis and also our way of financing our company: lots of funds which existed on the markets four years ago are no longer available. But what matters is the bottom-line result, not increasing turnover. At the start of our adventure, we thought: "how do we go about doing what we love and continuing to do it?" You have to do what it takes to achieve this, not do anything stupid. When people ask me how things are going, my favourite phrase is: "we’re surviving". I think that while ever we can manage to say this, everything’s okay.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy