It is as a distributor that she was present in the room during the Césars ceremony in 2020, but it is as a patron of rooms that she has had a funny year since.
Sophie Dulac, at the head of five Parisian arthouse cinemas, the Harlequin, the Reflet Médicis, the Escurial Panorama, the Majestic Bastille and the Majestic Passy, i.e. 2,300 seats, had to face two confinements, cover-ups fire, many deprogramming… She tells us about these twelve extraordinary months.
A first confinement rather well lived
On February 28, 2020, Sophie Dulac participated in the 45th Césars ceremony to defend her films - she remembers a "funny atmosphere with the demonstrators who shouted anti-Polanski slogans" in front of Pleyel.
But it's seventeen days after her very special year began.
“I left Paris on March 14 to go skiing for a week.
The 16th, the announcement of confinement falls ... for the next day!
I had to come back in a hurry, I had five cinemas to close.
In 24 hours, we had to cancel the programming, stop all the projectors, cut off the electricity, plan for future maintenance of these large rooms… ”
She didn't know it yet, but then “the administrative hell started.
It was necessary to organize the part-time employees, it was new and complicated, everyone fumbled… ”Especially since at the same time she had to talk to her teams, manage the delay of new films that were arriving, run the equipment every week ... However, she does not only have bad memories of this first confinement: "We told ourselves that we were not doing so badly, and then we did not feel alone, because all France was closed.
So like everyone else, I got busy by subscribing to Netflix!
"
A late reopening
When Emmanuel Macron signified the end of the first confinement on May 11, Sophie Dulac remembers "not having been aware of the disaster that was emerging".
First, operators had to wait until June 22, "for a reopening once again announced two days before!"
It was very complicated, we resumed the films released before March 17th ... In the end, we realized that that was not enough.
Between the gauges to be respected, the sanitary measures applied in the rooms, and the few novelties, we did not see many spectators, whereas we had to pay our employees, and that the aids did not arrive or did not arrive. did not match what had been promised.
"
It was therefore at the end of the summer that Sophie Dulac "began to wonder what (she) was going to become".
But September arrived, with its share of quality films: “The public has returned, in the end the cinemas have, in this very particular context, accumulated 20 million admissions in two months.
And… that's where we were asked to close, again the day before for the next day!
"
From second closure to curfew
When the theaters close for the second time, the impression of "an endless day" ./LP/Fred Dugit
When she had to close her theaters again in October, the manager felt “like a never-ending day”.
“We saw red.
It was not at all the same as in March, because our employees were psychologically exhausted by everything that had come before ”.
But she did not let herself be defeated so far and launched her "Box Maison Dulac".
A box set bringing together, for 45 euros, a Dulac Distribution film to be discovered on the Universciné platform, a DVD, two invitations for two people for upcoming screenings in one of the five cinemas, with lots of surprises, including a poster, a confectionery, letters signed by movie personalities explaining why cinemas are essential ...
“Yes, it was a question of saying that we are essential, remembers Sophie Dulac, while offering films to our spectators.
But they are loyal, they have played the game. "On the other hand, she finds that the government has not done so:" We were told that we would be able to reopen on December 15.
The machine had to be restarted, reprogrammed.
We then had plenty of energy… all this so that we could be taught three days before that we had to remain closed!
"Then the curfews followed one another:" How can we maintain morale in these conditions, when we spend our time proclaiming that during the two months of opening, there was no cluster, and that we gets nothing!
"
The Césars 2021, a platform
A year later, Sophie Dulac tries to hold on, even if she admits that on certain days, she asks herself the question: "Am I going to be able to keep my rooms open?"
"Because if a reopening is envisaged, it promises to prove to be complex:" 300 films are pending, that will create programming complications, and then we will have to deal with the gauges, the masks in theaters, the curfew … And we are now talking about a health pass to go to cultural places… What will be the conditions?
We don't know much in the end.
We all have the hope of reopening, but the Ministry of Culture does not speak to us, we have the impression of being plague victims.
"
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