Every Wednesday morning, at the UGC Ciné cité des Halles cinema in Paris (1st arrondissement), a small group of film distributors gathers. They all participate in the same ritual untouched by superstition: anxiously awaiting the audience that kicks off the releases. This 9 a.m. screening is like a career barometer for a piece of work. The adrenaline is there, says Éric Lagesse, head of Pyramide, a distributor: “We enjoy watching the number of available seats gradually decrease.”
Grégoire Marchal, co-manager of KMBO, couldn’t be present, but he will definitely check the numbers at the end of the screenings. How many admissions, especially on April 1, 2026, for the first showing of “Silent Friend” by Ildikó Enyedi, distributed by KMBO? The result is in: 23 admissions – modest, fitting with the film’s profile. The numbers, far from being an exact science, “provide an indication of the level of anticipation for a film.”
On March 18, “Les Rayons et les Ombres” by Xavier Giannoli was in the lead, foreshadowing its success to come (it could well reach a million admissions). But counterexamples exist. On December 17, 2025, “Le Chant des forêts” by Vincent Munier only managed a fifth place out of eight. Crushed by “Avatar. Of Fire and”
