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 the U.S. and to showcasing the vitality and the diversity of French cinema in Hollywood: comedies and dramas, box office hits in France and novelties, first features and films from established writer-directors, art house movies as well as mainstream films.

In 15 years, 231 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 20,000 in 2011 and an occupancy rate of 88%.

Its exclusive program has made of COL•COA an anticipated date in the industry calendar and one of the largest French film festivals 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 is also known 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 7,500 high school students and 70 high schools in Los Angeles County have participated in 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, Michel Hazanavicius, Claude Lelouch, Claude Miller, Bertrand Tavernier, Olivier Assayas, Laurent Cantet, Arnaud Desplechin, Anne Fontaine, Bertrand Blier and Mathieu Kassovitz.

Many celebrities have attended COL•COA, including actresses Nathalie Baye, Rosanna Arquette, Marion Cotillard, Julie Delpy, Helen Mirren, Gena Rowlands, Sharon Stone, Charlize Theron as well as prominent American writers and directors: Wes Craven, Taylor Hackford, John Landis, Michael Mann or Alexander Payne.