In solidarity. A major player and financier of French cinema, Canal + has decided to support cinemas which reopen on June 22. While an avalanche of films is announced for this crucial date for a sector also in crisis because of the coronavirus, Maxime Saada, president of the group's executive board, announces that his channel will not broadcast any feature film that day.
"On June 22, we will not be broadcasting films on Canal +," he explains on Thursday at Le Point. It will be a first since the birth of the chain in 1984. By this strong and symbolic gesture, we encourage all of our subscribers, who are very fond of cinema, to go to the cinema. "
"The growth of Studio Canal was stopped in mid-flight"
Instead, the encrypted channel, the grid of which is usually largely devoted to the cinema, will broadcast "sports, series, documentaries, the programs of Yves Calvi and Mouloud Achour", specifies the manager.
A gesture of solidarity which illustrates the close relationship between Canal + and cinema. During the confinement, and while the rooms were closed on March 15, "the growth of Studio Canal, our production and distribution company of films and series, was stopped in full flight", explains Maxime Saada. But the chain, if it released a few films directly on VOD (Radioactive, Ten days without mom or Samsam), preferred "to reserve most of [its] films in the room", to which it remains "very attached".