Film sales agents and the globalization of world cinema

French companies selling international film rights play a major role in the globalization of world cinema, a category encompassing arthouse films from all countries, generally financed in the context of international co-productions and marketed relying on the prescriptive power of festival selections and prizes. The presence of foreign arthouse films in these companies’ catalogues has gone hand in hand with the consolidation of the profession of sales agent and the assertion of its capacity to orchestrate the international circulation of the films represented. My research shows that these professionals are now being forced to adapt to the practices and professional cultures emerging around transnational platforms, and to new forms of intermediation at work on the independent film market. These transformations are increasingly leading sales agents to become involved upstream in the film financing process, and to adopt diversification strategies.