17/03/2010

Among the 12 new releases hitting French theatres today are two top German arthouse films, widely acclaimed by critics: Fatih Akin’s energetic comedy Soul Kitchen [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Hans-Christian Schmid’s thriller Storm [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexander Fehling
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
film profile] (finalist LUX Prize 2009 of the European Parliament), whose plot centres around the work of the International Criminal Tribunal.

Co-produced by Italy and France, Akin’s Soul Kitchen, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Venice Film Festival (see review and video interview with the director) is being launched by Pyramide on 120 screens. For the record, the director garnered 431,000 admissions in France with The Edge of Heaven [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
interview: Klaus Maeck
film profile] in 2007 and 122,000 with Head-on [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2004.

EuropaCorp Distribution is releasing a 65-print run of Storm by the director of Requiem [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Sandra Hueller
film profile]), starring New Zealand-born actress Kerry Fox and Romania’s Anamaria Marinca.

Meanwhile, Le Pacte is launching on 24 screens Dagur Kari’s The Good Heart [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see review and video interview), co-produced by Iceland, Denmark and France.

French production is represented in the line-up by five films, including Pascal Chaumeil’s Heartbreaker [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] (see news), starring Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis (distributed by Universal on over 400 screens); and Christopher Thompson’s Bus Palladium [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news), whose young protagonists set up a rock band (StudioCanal on over 200 screens).

MK2 Diffusion is launching a 198-print run of Christophe Blanc’s French/Belgian thriller White As Snow [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news), starring François Cluzet, Olivier Gourmet, Louise Bourgoin and Bouli Lanners. Meanwhile, SND is releasing on 82 screens Renaud Bertrand’s French/Luxembourg co-production Just the Three of Us [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news), featuring Emmanuelle Béart, Jacques Gamblin and Italian actor Stefano Accorsi.

Finally, Rezo Films is unveiling a 38-print run of Frédéric Chignac’s The Time of the Charity Fête Is Over [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news ).

(Translated from French)