Amel Lacombe: “Look Back is a concentrate of the best of modern Japanese animation”

Look Back, the animated medium-length film, adaptation of the famous manga of the same name, is benefiting from a temporary theatrical release in France on September 20 and 21, 2024. Amel Lacombe, the film’s distributor in France, explains the constraints linked to an event release.

If you follow manga news closely or from afar, you cannot have missed the phenomenon Look Back. This 143-page one-shot, signed by Tatsuki Fujimoto (Chainsaw Man, Fire Punch) was published on the online platform Jump+ in July 2021, and gathered more than 4 million readers in less than 48 hours. When the hardcover version (tankobon) was published in Japan, more than 150,000 copies were sold in two weeks.

Critics and readers alike have praised the quality of this work, already a classic of the genre.

Tatsuki Fujimoto, with Look Backmoves away from the action and adventure mangas that made his reputation, he delivers an intimate fable flirting with reality.

Look Back is the story of the meeting of two opposing personalities, the birth and blossoming of a friendship, and the pursuit of a devouring passion, all punctuated by a human drama.

Fujino is passionate about manga. Her strips are published every week in the school newspaper. Outgoing and self-confident, Fujino is convinced that she will become a famous mangaka. Her certainties waver when one day, she sees in the school newspaper a story drawn by Kyomoto. The drawing is much more beautiful than hers…

Kyomoto is what is called a hikikomorishe never leaves her house. But one day Fujino will be asked by his teacher to bring his end-of-year diploma to Kyomoto. This is the beginning of a great friendship between these two manga enthusiasts…

Adapted into a medium-length film (58 minutes), acclaimed at the Annecy festival, Look Back will be showing in French cinemas for two days only.

Amel Lacombe, the founder of Eurozoom, the distributor for France of this gem, explains to Linternaute.com why such an event release is necessary despite the financial risk.

Look back is the animated film adaptation of a one-shot manga that has achieved worldwide success. Was it an obvious “purchase”? Or did you wait to see the film to become interested in it?

Amel Lacombe: I hadn’t read the manga. I’m busy with my job as a film distributor, especially animated films. Of course, I had heard of the work, but I only became interested in it when an animated adaptation was announced. I talk to Japanese producers every day, the announcement of this adaptation generated a buzz in the industry, and even beyond.

I then looked into the story, learned the context around this work and the strong links with the tragedy that struck the Kyoani studio. I then contacted the international licensing managers of the film. I had never worked with them before, I was able to reassure them by presenting Eurozoom and convinced them of the interest of a release in France, but…

But… ?

But there were several obstacles. First of all, it is a film produced by a young independent studio. To finance themselves, they sold the film to an AVOD platform. These platforms do not have the same logic of exploitation of a film at all, as a cinema distributor like us. But I was captivated by the narration of the film, the grandiose dramaturgy of this cinematic UFO. Look Back is a concentrate of the best of modern Japanese animation in just 58 minutes.
I managed to negotiate to present it to the Annecy festival teams, who accepted because over the years we have built a relationship of trust with them. It was at the last minute, so in a special screening. They were overwhelmed by the craze around this screening, because it was sold out in less than an hour. They had to reschedule several.

With the explosion of AVOD and SVOD platforms, it seems difficult to make traditional exploitation and media chronology coexist in France. Is that why the film is being released during an event period?

Absolutely. I tried everything to make the platform understand that the French cultural exception was an asset for them. Even if it pushed back the exploitation of the film by 17 months in France. But I hit a wall. And yet, it is damaging for the film, and even, beyond that, for the director.

What are the constraints of an event outing?

People ignore these constraints, they think that it is enough to only go out for a few days. But the regulation is drastic in France. We are only allowed 500 sessions in 48 hours. Not one more session, otherwise we expose ourselves to a fine of €45,000. Moreover, at the moment, with the release of the documentary Kaizenfrom YouTuber Inoxtag, the producer MK2 Alternatif, took a very big risk by programming it for more than 1,000 sessions, ignoring the regulations.

Can you make a profit from an outing with 500 sessions in two days?

Absolutely not. In fact, we have set the number of screenings at 450 for the moment. Because it happens that some theaters schedule additional screenings at the last minute and notify us afterwards. An event release of Look Back in theaters is an economic aberration. And yet, I do it and will do it again without hesitation. We will lose money with the exploitation of this film, but artistically, it is a moral obligation to put it in theaters. Our job as distributors is to allow an audience to encounter films. To unearth the directors of tomorrow, to support them.

Is it for this spirit of “discovery” that you have planned a national outing?

Absolutely, economic logic would have pushed us to concentrate the 500 screenings in Paris and its metropolitan area. Where there is a greater population density and therefore a better guarantee of having full theaters. But it is important for us to offer the best possible coverage to this film and this young director. Today, our main competitors do not have this editorial logic. They are content to look at already established figures and take out the checkbook.

Do you have an almost artisanal logic?

We can say that we have retained a human scale indeed, and that is very important in this environment. Of course, money remains a strong key, if not the main key, but the human still allows us to compensate for certain excesses. It is thanks to the links we have forged with Makoto Shinkai, by supporting him from the beginning, that we were able to recover the distribution in France of Suzume. While Sony had recovered global exploitation outside Japan.

Moreover, we had the best score in Europe with 575,000 admissions, and ultimately a better result per copy than in the USA. If I come back to the visit of Kiyotaka Oshiyama, the director of Look Back to Annecy this summer, I had an incredible encounter. He is an exceptional person. He exudes a shimmering humanism. He works with his family, his wife is part of his studio. It is the kind of encounter that is worth tens of thousands of admissions in theaters. And I hope to be able to work with him again in the future.

Speaking of Makoto Shinkai, doesn’t an event release hurt potential prices?

Totally, and for several reasons. The first, technical, a film that does not have a “normal” operating visa cannot compete for the Césars for example. Platform films are very good for pre-production financing, but they harm the life of the work after release. France is a major territory for the added value around a director. In France, the director still has an incredible aura, he personifies a film. I can say without hesitation that if Mamoru Hosoda ended up in Cannes and at the Oscars, it is partly thanks to his visit to France when the film was released The Journey Through Time. We had a lot of press when he came. And the people in charge of the selection committees, but also the members of the juries, watch the press a lot.

If you Google “Mamoru Hosoda” in the news tab, you will mostly come across articles from the French-speaking press. Recently, for Ongakua niche film, Marius Chapuis in Libération wrote an article about the film. This type of article is a major event in a director’s career. For SuzumeCrunchyroll was very smart, and pushed for a worldwide theatrical release. And history has proven them right when you look at the number of selections and awards the film has received.

Should we expect this type of event release to become a new norm in the world of animated films?

I don’t think so. Renowned directors and studios are well aware of the impacts of a release limited to AVOD and SVOD platforms. Today, small producers do not necessarily have the means to refuse this type of contract and constraints. But I hope that they will learn to unite, to negotiate a few exceptions, and that France will be part – like Japan – of the countries where a theatrical release will be maintained, despite the media chronology.

How does an outing of this type differ from a “classic” outing?

This has nothing to do with it. We don’t do a hundredth of our job for this type of release. No press, no space purchases, no communication, no influence work. We are already operating at a loss, we can’t increase the deficit. This is also why we can’t offer a version with dubbing.

You still opened a pop-up store for three days?

Usually, this pop-up store, which is adjacent to our offices, serves as a promotional support above all. But bringing promotional material, goodies or other from Japan is expensive and takes time. For Look Back, we decided to use the pop-up store as a sideline, to mark the importance of this release, support this young director as much as possible, and communicate with our spectators.

Look Back, a film by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, in theaters exclusively on September 21 and 22, 2024.