18/01/2006

The award for distribution goes this week to Flemish Lumière who have brought us the two gems of auteur cinema which will battle against a raft of nine productions, of which five come from the USA. Especially the second feature from Icelandic Dagur Kari, Dark Horse [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Voksne Mennesker), which arrives in the cinemas preceded by a strong reputation. Screened at the European Film Festival in Brussels, the film won the Grand Jury prize after having been well received in selection for the Cannes "Un Certain Regard". This Nimbus Films production with Danish Zentropa, is a black and white dreamlike incursion by the director of Noi Albinoi into errant love. And The Hunter (Anshi) is a first film of an intense beauty, dry, luminous and silent. This co-production from Kazakhstan is directed by Serik Aprymov, a talented director, who, with Darejan Ormirbaev, Aktan Abdykalykov (from Kirgistan) and Djamesh Usmonov (Tadjikistan) are at the prow of an Asian cinema of great quality but little known and barely exploited. This Kazakh film co-produced with Japan benefited from a veritable collection of European funds: the French Fond Sud, the Swiss Fondation Montecinemaverità and Dutch Hubert Bals Fund.

In a very different register, Victory Films distributes a bitter-sweet French comedy, Je vous trouve très beau (I think you are very beautiful) interpreted by Michel Blanc and Meddea Marinescu. Isabelle Mergault, better known in France for her talents as humorist and actress, takes her first steps behind the camera with a topical theme, the story of Rumanian arriving in France after an arranged marriage. Un Ticket pour l'espace is the other comedy of the week, played by a comic duo that is well-known to French TV viewers Kad et Olivier, aided by the exceptionally gifted comic Marina Fois which is released today on French screens (read the news) and which is distributed by Les Films de L'Elysée.

(Translated from French)