Gaumont steps up international activities in a bid to boost French heritage films
Gaumont -- the first and oldest film company in the world -- is on track to boost its international clout, via a program to spotlight heritage films from its native France.
The 120-year-old French company, which also boasts a 1,000-title library of classic, local films, launched a program to highlight its heritage films through activities about five years ago, but the initiative has only recently gained further traction due to a series of upcoming tie-ups with global film festivals and museums.
As part of the program, Gaumont recently hosted a film retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and showed a portion of its "Gaumont: 120 Years of Cinema" exhibit and film retrospective in Singapore.
Additionally, it has professionally restored 400 movies from its 1,000-title library, with a restored copy of Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Coup de tête" shown during the Euro 2016 soccer tournament, and a set of films soon to be shown in screens across Myanmar for the fourth edition of the Memory! Festival.
Ariane Toscan du Plantier, who heads up Gaumont's communication and heritage films, revealed that it is "particularly eager to develop events and partnerships in the US, Japan, China, and Vietnam."
