23/06/2010

Kim Chapiron’s English-language French/Canadian co-production Dog Pound [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which won Best New Director at Tribeca, is being launched today on 95 screens by Mars Distribution.

Widely acclaimed by critics for its energy and its uncompromising, unstylised portrayal of violence, the film centres on three teenagers imprisoned in a jail for juvenile delinquents where they have to choose which side they’re on: victims or torturers.

"I’ve seen too many prison films with tattooed Chicanos, gangs of Jamaicans who kill each other in caricatured racial relationships. It’s an overdone subject which I didn’t want to tackle. I wanted to invest my emotions elsewhere. I also wanted maximum realism," explained Chapiron, who visited many prisons in America’s Midwest before writing (in collaboration with Jérémie Delon) the screenplay."

The director continued: “Dog Pound has just one message to convey: locking kids away in prison is not the right solution. This film is my way of holding up a mirror to show how much of a mess this system is. Mixing those who can still be saved with those who have experienced a horrible reality is a denial of civilisation."

Produced by Partizan Films for €4.8m, Dog Pound was 40% co-produced by Canada, pre-bought by Canal + and Ciné Cinéma, and enjoyed successful international sales through Wild Bunch.

Among this Wednesday’s ten new releases, there has also been press support for Wandering Streams [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Pascal Rabaté (adapted from his comic book), which explores with subtlety and humour the love lives of older people in the countryside (distributed by Ad Vitam).

French production is also represented by Jean-Paul Salomé’s The Chameleon [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news – distributed by Gaumont).

The line-up also includes Italian director Pietro Marcello’s The Mouth of the Wolf [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pietro Marcello
film profile], which is being released on 11 screens by Bellissima Films (see news); Josué Mendez’s Peruvian/Argentinean/French/German co-production Gods [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (distributed by Bodega Films); and Natalia Smirnoff’s Argentinean/French co-production Puzzle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which won acclaim in competition at Berlin (see review – Sophie Dulac Distribution).

At the box office, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sylvain Chomet
film profile] achieved the best per-screen average of last week’s releases and has amassed 75,000 admissions in five days (84 screens – Pathé Distribution). Meanwhile, Jean Becker’s My Afternoons With Marguerite [+see also:
trailer
film profile] continues to rake in takings with a total of 812,000 viewers in almost three weeks (StudioCanal on 556 screens).

(Translated from French)