24/09/2003

From today French cinemas will be featuring three new European films. There’s the Swedish production Cops by Josef Fares, the Romanian work Niki et Flo by Lucian Pintilie and the Italian film Red Moon by Antonio Capuano. And also doing well in cinemas following positive noises passing by word of mouth is the German Good bye, Lenin! by Wolfgang Becker.

In the last two weeks, the French market share for European films has risen to 10%, an excellent result when compared with this year’s average of around 3%. The main reason for this increase is the hit film Goodbye, Lenin! [+see also:
trailer
interview: Wolfgang Becker
film profile] which has attracted a cinema audience of 280,000 in 12 days. After launching the film in an initial run of 89 prints, Océan Films has added another 49 copies, putting the film on a total of 138 screens. Something worth noting is that in the first 5 days of the second week of release, the film by Wolfgang Becker registered the proportionately same figures as Matchstick Men, the new film by Ridley Scott, which has 268 more prints out than the German hit.

And this European flavour at French cinemas continues to get stronger with the release of the successful Swedish film Cops by Josef Fares (it is distributed by Equation in 25 prints), the French-Romanian co-production Niki et Flo (40 prints, Rezo Films) and the Italian film Red Moon by Antonio Capuano (distributed by Boomerang Productions in 10 prints).

(Translated from French)