04/03/2015 - This week’s batch of new releases includes Snow in Paradise, Class Enemy, Tokyo Fiancée, The Shelter and The Circle

While Wolf Totem [+see also:
film review
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film profile] by Jean-Jacques Annaud (which has taken 389,000 admissions over its first five days and enticed 12 million viewers in China over 12 days), the British production Kingsman: The Secret Service [+see also:
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film profile] by Matthew Vaughn (885,000 viewers over 12 days) and the comedies Papa ou maman [+see also:
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making of
film profile] (2.2 million admissions over 26 days) and La famille Bélier [+see also:
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making of
film profile] (almost 7 million over 11 weeks) still hog the limelight at the French box office – and StudioCanal has announced that Paddington [+see also:
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making of
film profile] by Paul King has become its biggest global success to date (grossing $241 million) – this Wednesday sees a raft of top-notch European features hit French screens.

Le Pacte and The Jokers have joined forces to bring out the atmospheric crime film Snow in Paradise [+see also:
film review
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interview: Andrew Hulme
film profile] by British director Andrew Hulme in 17 theatres; the movie was revealed in Un Certain Regard at Cannes (read the review and watch the interview with the director).

Paname Distribution is releasing 29 copies of Class Enemy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rok Biček
interview: Rok Bicek
interview: Rok Bicek
film profile] by Slovenian filmmaker Rok Bicek, a feature debut that turned a lot of heads at Venice and won the Cineuropa Prize at Les Arcs. The movie is an acute exploration of the subject of group dynamics in a school environment (read the review and watch the interview with the director).

Eurozoom is pinning its hopes on 80 copies of Tokyo Fiancée [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Belgian filmmaker Stefan Liberski (co-produced with France and Canada), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Amélie Nothomb, starring Pauline Etienne in the lead (nominated for the 2015 Magritte Award for Best Actress for this very role).

Swiss cinema takes pride of place this week with two documentaries: The Shelter [+see also:
film review
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interview: Fernand Melgar
film profile] by Fernand Melgar (unveiled in competition last year at Locarno – read the review and the interview – distributed by Dissidenz in five cinemas) and The Circle [+see also:
film review
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interview: Stefan Haupt
film profile] by Stefan Haupt (which won in the Panorama at last year’s Berlinale and was Switzerland’s candidate for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign-language Film – read the review and watch the video interview with the director – distributed by Outplay across four screens). 

Also of note are Talking to the Trees [+see also:
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film profile] by Italian duo Ilaria Borrelli and Guido Freddi (Destiny Distribution) and, among the documentaries, the German-US co-production Citizenfour [+see also:
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film profile] by Laura Poitras (distributed by Haut et Court), which has just won an Oscar, and The Great Museum [+see also:
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film profile] by Austria’s Johannes Holzhausen (revealed in the Forum at the 2014 Berlinale - Jour2Fête in 19 theatres).

Keeping a fairly low profile among the new releases (which is an unusual enough phenomenon to warrant a mention), the French film industry will be able to count on L'Art de la fugue [+see also:
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film profile] by Brice Cauvin (read the article – starring such names as Laurent Lafitte, Agnès Jaoui and Benjamin Biolay – distributed by KMBO in 128 cinemas) as well as the documentary La vie des gens [+see also:
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film profile] by Olivier Ducray (Tamasa Distribution).

(Translated from French)