By Melanie Goodfellow2020-12-22T15:53:00+00:00 As part of Screen’s Perspectives on 2020 series, Gaumont CEO Sidonie Dumas explains how she juggled production and release schedules at the French powerhouse in the face of two national lockdowns. Source: Subject’s own Sidonie Dumas Sidonie Dumas is CEO of France’s oldest film company Gaumont. Under her leadership, it quit the exhibition sector in 2017 to focus on film and TV production as well as theatrical distribution at home. The company was still in the midst of this transition when the pandemic struck. It delivered a double blow as film and TV shoots shut down and cinemas closed for 14 weeks in the first lockdown, and then from October 30 until at least January 7, 2021, amid a second wave of the coronavirus.