RELEASES France
Le Pacte and Wild Side Films release Rec 2 on 251 screens
by Fabien Lemercier
23/12/2009 - Eight European productions and co-productions are hitting French screens this Wednesday, alongside two US films and an Iranian title, while not one French feature is in the line-up, which is very unusual.
Hoping to repeat the excellent results of the first instalment, which they launched in France in April 2008 on 170 screens (garnering 554,000 admissions), Le Pacte and Wild Side Films are releasing a 251-print run of [REC]2 [trailer] by Spanish duo Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza. The film was presented out of competition at the latest Venice Film Festival (see review) and enjoyed immense domestic success.
Spain also puts in an appearance with Francis Ford Coppola’s Spanish/Argentinean/Italian co-production Tetro [trailer], which caused a splash in the latest Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (see review). It is being released by Memento Films Distribution on 114 screens.
Scandinavian cinema is represented this festive season by Erik Poppe’s Troubled Water [trailer] (winner of the Norwegian Film Critics’ 2009 Award – distributed by Jour2Fête on 15 screens); Mika Kaurismaki’s Three Wise Men [trailer] (see news - Epicentre Films on ten screens); and Nahid Persson’s Swedish documentary The Queen and I (Pretty Pictures on two screens).
Eurozoom is launching a five-print run of Serbian director Goran Paskaljevic’s Honeymoons (unveiled at Venice: see video interview and review), while StudioCanal is releasing UK director Joe Wright’s UK/US/French co-production The Soloist [trailer].
Finally, Metropolitan Filmexport is launching Michael J. Basset’s French/Czech/UK co-production Solomon Kane [trailer].
In the weekly box office rankings, two French films make it to the podium, behind the blockbuster Avatar: Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard [trailer] (2.48m admissions in 19 days) and Nicolas Vanier’s Wolf (432,000 viewers in 12 days).
The per-screen average rankings are also dominated by the giant US release. In second and third places are Dominique Monféry’s French/Italian animated film Eleonor’s Secret [trailer] and Mia Hansen-Love’s French/German co-production The Father of My Children [trailer, film focus].
(Translated from French)
