03/11/2010

Young Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés’s thrilling coffin-set drama Buried [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Cortés
film profile] won over French exhibitors so Studio 37 and Rezo Films joined forces for the occasion and are today releasing the film on a generous 228-print run.

Buried has an innovative promotional campaign with the first interactive trailer on the Internet via mobile phones. The film’s protagonist, who is buried alive with a mobile phone as his only tool for survival, asks Internet users watching the trailer for their mobile number. He rings them back straight away via call-back and asks for their help via their phone keypad.

Depending on the different options, the trailer then unfolds differently. Internet users are also invited to give their friends’ email addresses and telephone numbers to spark a buzz.

Finally, a relay page on Facebook makes it possible to count the number of calls received by the protagonist. The more this number increases, the more Internet users can move searches forward and manage to identify the place where the protagonist is buried on a map.

Launched on October 23, this promotional operation has been staggeringly successful: the initial aim of 50,000 clicks in three weeks was achieved in 24 hours, 200,000 connections were counted in ten days and visits at peak times reached one connection per second. It will thus be particularly interesting to follow the film’s theatrical results to gauge the impact of this buzz on actual admissions.

This Wednesday’s high-quality line-up includes ten other new releases, starting with former Cannes competition contender The Princess of Montpensier [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Bertrand Tavernier (see review – distributed by StudioCanal on 384 screens). It is joined by three other titles acclaimed on the Croisette: Sabina Guzzanti’s documentary Draquila – Italy Trembles [+see also:
trailer
Interview Sabina Guzzanti [IT]
film profile] (see news – Bellissima Films on 29 screens); Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s Young Girls In Black [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (see review – Les Films du Losange on 36 screens); and US thriller Fair Game (UGC Distribution).

There has also been an enthusiastic critical reception for Eric Lartigau’s The Big Picture [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring Romain Duris on top form (see news). EuropaCorp Distribution, which is releasing the film on over 370 screens, is dominating the box office at the moment with Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2.42m admissions in 11 days on 629 screens) and Arthur and the Two Worlds War [+see also:
trailer
making of
interview: Luc Besson
film profile] (2.16m admissions in 19 days on 778 screens).

The line-up is completed by Olia Barco’s Belgian/French production Kill Me Please [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Le Pacte on 18 screens); Russian director Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls (FIPRESCI Prize at Venice – Memento Films Distribution); and two documentaries: Antoine Boutet’s Le Plein Pays (“Full Country”, distributed by Les Films du Paradoxe) and Frédéric Chaudier’s Les Yeux Ouverts (“Open Eyes”, Zelig Films Distribution).

(Translated from French)