04/01/2006

New Year's eve has not seen EuropaCorp's ambition falter. Luc Besson's and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam's production, distribution and international sales company, is making his debut in exploitation with the planned opening of a multiplex in Marseille, not forgetting the highly ambitious project of the European Cinema City in Saint-Denis in 2007, with its 9 film sets and 30,000m2 office space for a total budget of 130 million euros. Occupying 13th place in the 2005 listing of distributors in France, the company ended the year with the good performance of its co-production The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (500,000 tickets sold) and with the relatively poor performance of Luc Besson's latest feature-length film Angel-A [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (328,000 tickets sold in the first week). EuropaCorp starts off 2006 on a positive note with today's release of a combination of 80 prints of Colour me Kubrick [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Brian Cook with John Malkovich heading the bill. An account from the viewpoint of a Londoner pretending to be a mythic film director, this Franco (30%)-British (70%) co-production budget is of 8.2 million euros. Presold to Canal+ and TPS, the feature film produced in France by EuropaCorp and the British trio of CMK productions, First Choice and Isle of Man Film is also distributed worldwide by Luc Besson.

Along with four American films and one Iranian film, French documentaries are in the spotlight in French cinemas this week, with three documentaries on the starting line: Dans un camion rouge (In a Red Truck) by Patrice Chagniard (Diaphana Distribution – 15 prints) Sector 545 by Pierre Creton (Shellac Distribution – 5 prints) and, last but not least, La fille du juge (The Judge's Daughter) by William Karel. Karel, whose documentary The World According to Bush (nominated in 2004 at the European Film Awards) was a hit, has this time decided to explore the 1990 suicide of Gilles Boulouque – the famous judge in the war against terrorism – through the memories of his daughter, then a teenager. Produced by Roche Productions for a budget of 1.2 million euros, La fille du juge received financial support of 300,000 euros from Arte France Cinéma and 41 prints will be released by Rezo Distribution.

(Translated from French)