As the Cannes Festival and the Film Market have just come to an end, the Association of Film Exporters (ADEF), composed of companies ranging from very small enterprises to large groups, extends its heartfelt congratulations to the teams of the awarded films and to the French exporters who represent the majority of them this year. The international promotion support fund established in 2017 by the CNC helps to enhance the international visibility of French films, but the international sales companies based in France also export foreign films thanks to numerous co-productions with France and their recognized expertise in the international sales field.

An essential tool for the sector is the territoriality of rights, the importance of which was reiterated in the European Parliament at the end of 2023: when a company buys the rights to a film or audiovisual content, it also buys a defined time window for a defined territory.

Without this territoriality, even a festival such as the Cannes Festival could simply not exist (not to mention the rest of the career of the films shown there or their visibility). Let's not forget that films exist long before they are visible on the internet.

Here are the films represented by French international sales companies which won the majority of the awards at Cannes this year: