20/09/2011

Success has been pulled off for Yann Samuell’s War of the Buttons [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (pictured), which attracted 571,000 viewers in five days (UGC Distribution – on 596 prints), i.e. the second best box-office start of 2011 for a French film. These results are a comfortable springboard before tomorrow’s release of Christophe Barratier’s War of the Buttons [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the other film adaptation of Louis Pergaud’s novel (see news), shakes things up.

French cinema also has cause for celebration with Valérie Donzelli’s Declaration of War [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see review), which is France’s entry in the nomination race for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. This autumn’s phenomenal hit has garnered 507,000 admissions in 19 days with a drop of only 18% in its third week and a print run on the increase (129 prints in its first week, 235 in its second and 279 in its third).

Domestic production is also enjoying good results with Gilles Legrand’s You Will Be My Son [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (533,000 admissions in three weeks – Universal Pictures on 351 prints) and Vincent Garenq’s Guilty [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vincent Garenq
film profile] (237,000 viewers in 11 days – Mars Distribution on 223 prints). Moreover, a total of 184,000 admissions have been notched up in two weeks by Franck Mancuso’s thriller R.I.F. [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (StudioCanal on 292 prints) and 205,000 in three weeks by Christophe Honoré’s The Beloved [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christophe Honoré
film profile] (Le Pacte on 218 prints).

European cinema shines with Italian director Nanni Moretti’s We Have a Pope [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nanni Moretti
film profile], which is still in third place in the weekly box-office rankings for its second week on release. The film has attracted 318,000 viewers in 11 days and is showing great staying power (-23% in its second week – Le Pacte on 264 prints). Also enjoying a good, lengthy run is The Skin I Live In [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile] by Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar (574,000 admissions in four weeks – Pathé Films on 341 prints) and to a lesser degree Melancholia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars von Trier
film profile] by Denmark’s Lars von Trier (341,000 viewers in five weeks – Les Films du Losange on 189 prints).

Finally, the following two films have performed well on their release: The Fairy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
film profile] by directorial trio Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy (25,000 admissions in five days – MK2 on 61 prints) and Where Do We Go Now? [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Nadine Labaki (79,000 in five days – Pathé Films on 135 prints).

According to estimates by the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC)), French theatres have recorded 135m admissions during the first eight months of 2011 (-3% compared to the same period in 2010) with a 32.3% market share for domestic films, 52% for US productions and 15.7% for features from other countries.

(Translated from French)