Four French films hit screens

by Aurore Engelen

03/03/2010 - Four French films will try to win over Belgian audiences this week. The overall tone is comic, with an emphasis on laughter.

Europacorp is already on its fourth film in these early months of 2010, with Coursier [trailer] (“Courrier”), a two-wheeled variation on the Taxi theme, as shown in the poster’s crayon-like typeface. Coursier is directed by Hervé Renoh, a new protégé of the EuropaCorp team. Belga is releasing the title on 16 screens.

Also hitting theatres this week is Ensemble, C’est Trop [trailer] (“Together, It’s Too Much”), the new film by Swiss director Lea Fazer. A specialist in quirky romantic comedies (Welcome to Switzerland, What If...? [trailer]), she gently goes off at a tangent from Claude Berri’s warm-hearted film Ensemble C’est Tout [trailer] (international title: “Hunting and Gathering”), based on Anna Gavalda’s novel, by focusing on a young couple who are confronted with their parents’ overly invasive mid-life crisis.

Produced by Chez Wam, Ensemble C’est Trop boasts a glittering cast, including Aïssa Maïga, Nathalie Baye, Pierre Arditi, and Jocelyn Quivrin in one of his last roles. The film is being released on eight screens by Cinéart.

The third French film in this week’s line-up is Benoît Pétré’s debut feature Thelma, Louise and Chantal [trailer]. Produced by La Fabrique 2, it received a small amount of backing from the collaborative production platform Touscoprod.com (like the recentRestless by Laurent Perreau, and upcoming Black Heaven by Gilles Marchand).

In a completely different tone, Coopérative Nouveau Cinéma is launching a small two-print run of Patrice Chéreau’s latest, Persecution [trailer], presented at last year’s Venice Film Festival. It includes a tailor-made role for Romain Duris, and a perfect one for Jean-Hugues Anglade, who was outdone at the Cesar Awards by the phenomenally successful A Prophet [trailer, film focus].

Finally, Imagine is releasing Tales from the Golden Age [trailer], the collective project by Cristian Mungiu and four fellow directors, which explores the concept of urban legends in Communist Romania, with an entirely ironic nostalgia. This project, shown in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, is adjusted to different audiences, and is being released in Belgium in a version including four of the six episodes.

(Translated from French)