Can you tell us about your activities in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa?
Founded in 2007, Orange Studio is the Orange Group's film subsidiary, involved in film co-production and acquisition. Our various activities include production, exploitation, and distribution. We financed the film Benda Bilili
, the Senegalese film La Pirogue
, and Timbuktu.
These films allowed us to see the many positive benefits of promoting African culture. We therefore decided to develop our content and productions as part of the group's expansion. We have launched an audiovisual business, from the big screen to the small screen, in the 21 countries on the continent where Orange is present.
To date, we have made 26 feature films, taking care to make films about African culture, told by African authors, rather than films made by French people about Africa. In addition to these co-productions, we launched a series two years ago. We realized from our subsidiaries that there was a real demand for this. These series are primarily comedies from Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.
When it comes to local production, the question of export arises. What is your view on this issue?
Indeed, when we talk about production, we have to address the issue of profitability
.
We are at the dawn of this market. It is a market that is still being organized. Profitability will come when it is more or less organized. Export is not necessarily guaranteed, but our primary goal is to produce African works about African culture to satisfy viewer demand. The balance will come naturally, in a second phase. From a global perspective, the quality of African productions is clearly improving.
You have signed an agreement with Vivendi focused on the CanalOlympia cinema network in nearly a dozen African countries
.
Can you tell us more about this?
One of our goals is to make cinema as accessible as possible to everyone in Africa. The CanalOlympia network felt the need to call on our technical expertise for its new theaters, such as digital film distribution, the provision of a catalog, and our services such as ticket payment via Orange Money. We therefore provided them with real technical assistance as well as marketing support.
We can only rejoice at the renaissance of movie theaters in French-speaking Africa, driven in particular by the rollout of the CanalOlympia network, the presence of Ivorian actor Majestic, and the recent establishment of Pathé.
Africa has taken the turn toward digital and the digitization of content. Is it possible to reconcile cinema with VOD platforms?
I think we will see the same phenomenon as in France. Beyond the film itself, cinema is a fun activity that will continue to attract audiences. I think young people will appreciate a film on the big screen as much as on their smartphone screen. Movie theaters will be successful.
What are your development prospects on the continent?
We had to gradually establish a local production and distribution organization, which was not easy since we were starting from scratch. We couldn't impose our French vision and system, but had to adapt. We also aim to step up our activities to support production. We hope to work with our subsidiaries to develop productions that are increasingly high in quality but also high in quantity, as we will need to be able to feed all our "pipes" and support the development of the industry.
We will also focus on series production, as this is what African viewers want. Studies have shown that national films are in high demand on our VOD and SVOD platforms. In Africa, as in France, people love international series, but also and above all local series. That is why we have chosen to develop African productions.