Colcoa, the Los Angeles-based French film festival, will be hosting its 23rd edition in September, right before the start of the awards season. Created by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, Colcoa will also be showcasing a more contained lineup focused on film and TV at the Directors Guild of America’s newly-renovated venue.
The festival was previously scheduled in April but is being pushed to September 23-28 due to the renovation work being done at the DGA to upgrade the 600-seat main screening room with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos technology.
Positioned after Cannes, Toronto, Venice and Telluride and right before the New York Film Festival and Mipcom, Colcoa will have the opportunity to be a Hollywood launchpad for key French movies, and will allow American buyers to test the potential of French series with a U.S. audience, said Francois Truffart, Coloca’s executive producer and artistic director.
The program, which used to boast 50 titles, will be reduced to 30 titles with three competitive sections (compared with five previously) for movies, TV series/films and shorts. The idea, said Truffart, is to turn a bigger spotlight on each film, series or short for industry members and the general audience.
Truffart is also being backed for the first time by a selection committee comprised of two high-profile film critics and a pair of industry professionals based in the U.S.
A popular venue for film lovers in L.A., the festival gathered 23,000 attendees in 2018 and has become one of the world’s largest showcases of French cinema and TV programs. Colcoa is organised by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a partnership of the DGA, MPAA, SACEM and WGA West.
Last year’s festival kicked off with Eric Barbier’s Romain Gary biopic “Promise at Dawn.” Colcoa will soon unveil the selection of TV and shorts for the upcoming edition.