Le Pacte and Wild Side seal alliance with REC

by Fabien Lemercier

23/04/2008 - Today’s release on 167 screens of the Spanish horror film REC [trailer, film focus] by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza (see Focus) also marks the beginning of a collaboration between distribution companies Le Pacte and Wild Side Films.

Besides the titles in their own line-up (including François Ozon’s Ricky [trailer], Italian director Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra [trailer, film focus] and UK documentary Young @ Heart), Jean Labadie’s new company Le Pacte will also release films acquired by Wild Side.

Their 2008-2009 collaborative line-up features around ten titles, including Valhalla Rising by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, the Irish/UK thriller The Daisy Chain by Aisling Walsh and Spanish features King of the Hill by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego and Paintball by Daniel Benmayor.

This week’s releases are also dominated by TFM Distribution’s 522-print run of Cash [trailer], directed by the screenwriter Eric Besnard. The film stars Jean Dujardin, Jean Reno, François Berléand, Alice Taglioni and Italian actress Valeria Golino.

This widely promoted film traces the misadventures of some high-flying crooks (see news) and was made on a budget of €14.49m (including a €2.3m investment from TF1 Film Production).

Six European co-productions are also being launched. Among the major names, Austrian director Michael Haneke’s remake Funny Games US (starring Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Michael Pitt) is being released by Les Films du Losange on 118 screens; and Rezo are launching on 24 screens Volker Schlöndorff’s French/German co-production Ulzhan [trailer], which screened at Cannes and Berlin.

Other festival titles also hit screens today, including Semih Kaplanoglu’s Turkish/Greek Egg [trailer] (Les Acacias – 10 screens); Eran Riklis’ French/German/Israeli co-production Lemon Tree (Océan Films – 70 screens); Diego Martinez Vignatti’s Belgian/Argentinean film Tides [trailer] (see news - Bodega Films – five screens); and Pedro Aguilera’s Spanish/Mexican film La Influencia (Bac Films – 10 screens).

(Translated from French)