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COL•COA STORY
City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) was created in 1996 by The Franco-American Cultural
Fund, a unique collaborative effort of the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Picture Association,
the Writers Guild of America West, and France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of
Music (SACEM). COL•COA is also supported by l’Association des Auteurs-Réalisateurs-Producteurs
(ARP), the Film and TV Office of the French Embassy in Los Angeles and UNIFRANCE.
COL•COA is committed to promoting new French films in Hollywood and to showcasing the vitality and
the diversity of French cinema: comedies and dramas, box office hits in France and novelties, first
features and films from confirmed writer-directors, art house movies as well as mainstream films.
In 14 years, 202 new feature films and 140 new shorts have been selected. COL•COA has constantly
developed to become a showcase of at least 50 films, with a capacity of 17,100 in 2010 and an occupancy
rate of 87.4%.
Its exclusive program has made of COL•COA an anticipated date in the industry calendar. It is now
one of the biggest events in Hollywood exclusively dedicated to foreign cinema and one of the largest
French film events in the world. Scheduled a few weeks after the Academy Awards® and one month
before the Cannes Film Festival, COL•COA has become a prestigious event in Los Angeles.
Since 2004, the selection is exclusively composed of premieres. Several high-profile features are
presented at COL•COA for the first time in North America or in the U.S. COL•COA has also become
popular for presenting successful films a year before their commercial release in the U.S., raising the
event’s profile among U.S. distributors who now use the event as a platform to launch and promote
their film in Hollywood.
The COL•COA audience is mainly composed of film industry professionals (74%), including Academy
Awards® members: directors, writers, distributors, producers, agents, exhibitors, critics and
journalists. COL•COA has developed partnerships with organizations like IFTA, The Cannes Film
Market, Film Independent, Women in Film, The American Cinematheque, SAG, and since 2008, the
Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
Additionally, COL•COA is more than a film industry event. It has become more and more popular in
the Greater Los Angeles community and most of the screenings are booked several weeks before
the event.
In 2008, an educational program was also launched to promote foreign films among young American
audiences in association with E.L.M.A (European Languages & Movies in America). Close to
5,000 American high school students and 70 high schools in Los Angeles County have participated
to the program since 2008. In 2010, a master class was introduced for colleges, film schools and
universities.
More than 100 French writers, directors and producers have presented their film(s) at COL•COA.
Among them are Costa-Gavras, Alain Corneau, Claire Denis, Claude Lelouch, Claude Miller, Bertrand
Tavernier, Olivier Assayas, Laurent Cantet, Arnaud Desplechin, Anne Fontaine and Mathieu
Kassovitz.
Many celebrities have attended COL•COA, including actresses Rosanna Arquette, Marion Cotillard,
Julie Delpy, Gena Rowlands, Sharon Stone, Charlize Theron or prominent American writers and directors:
Wes Craven, Taylor Hackford, John Landis, Michael Mann or Alexander Payne.
Lastly, COL•COA attracts more and more U.S., French and International media to promote and cover
the event each year, including Variety, Screen International, The Hollywood Reporter, Canal Plus,
France 2, TF1, France Inter, Le Point, Le Parisien, TV5 Monde, Time Warner Cable, KPCC, The Los
Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Ouest France, indieWIRE, Los Angeles Magazine, Le Film Français, Studio
Magazine, Liberation, AFP, I-TV, E! France and Paris Match.
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