June: Nine European titles hit Hungarian screens

by Fabien Lemercier

22/06/2006 - With titles from France, Italy, the UK and Denmark, along with today’s release of French/Italian/Belgian co-production Hell [trailer] by Danis Tanovic, distributed in Hungary by Best Hollywood, European cinema continues its regular good performance on Hungarian screens.

Since May 25, nine (non-Hungarian) European features have been released in the country. These include four majority French productions: Changing Times [trailer] by François Ozon and La Vérité si je mens 2 (lit “The Truth If I Lie 2”), released May 25 by Budapest Film and FF Film respectively; as well as Time To Leave [trailer] by André Téchiné and Anthony Zimmer by Jérôme Salle, released by SPI International on June 8 (with Anthony Zimmer coming in sixth in the box office during its first week of release).

Also of note is the box-office success of the minority French co-production Silent Hill [trailer] by Christophe Gans, which was in the top 10 for six weeks, grossing over €210,000.

Hungarian audiences were also given the chance to appreciate the diversity of European filmmaking with the Danish feature Dear Wendy by Thomas Vinterberg (released June 1 by SPI), UK titles The Road to Guantanamo [trailer] by Michael Winterbottom (released by Budapest Film on June 1), Keeping Mum [trailer] by Niall Johnson (also released June 1 by Forum Hungary and still number six in the box office after its third week), and the Italian/Luxembourg/UK/US co-productionThe Merchant of Venice [trailer] by Michael Radford (released June 15 by SPI and ninth in the box office in its first week of release).

The top spots at the box office are still taken up by US blockbusters, but Woody Allen’s UK production Match Point [trailer] has done well by remaining four weeks at the top 10 since late May/early June.

(Translated from French)