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RELEASES France

The Winter Sleep gamble

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- On 6 August, Memento will release the Palme d'Or winner across 120 screens. Also of note are the Italian comedy I Can Quit Whenever I Want and Lucy by Luc Besson

The Winter Sleep gamble
Winter Sleep by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Whether it’s true or not, French distributors have for several years considered summer to be a season that is none too kind to arthouse films. And today, Wednesday 30 July, is a good illustration of this, with just eight new releases in theatres, including the Franco-Belgian co-production Baby Balloon [+see also:
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 by Stefan Liberski (Pyramide Distribution), and Hasta mañana [+see also:
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 by the duo Olivier Vidal and Stéphane Maggiani (Zelig Films Distribution). However, Memento Films Distribution seems to want to prove this paradigm wrong from next week onwards by releasing the Cannes Palme d'Or winner, Winter Sleep [+see also:
film review
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interview: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
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, by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, in 120 cinemas on 6 August.

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Riding high on a wave of success that was far from a foregone conclusion (including 965,000 admissions for Asghar Farhadi’s The Past [+see also:
film review
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, 495,000 for Ida [+see also:
film review
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interview: Pawel Pawlikowski
interview: Pawel Pawlikowski
film profile
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 by Pawel Pawlikowski and 196,000 admissions in six weeks for the Chinese Golden Bear winner Black Coal), the company headed by Alexandre Mallet-Guy had initially set a release date of 13 August for Winter Sleep, before bringing it forward by a week. This date was chosen in order to give exhibitors a chance to give the film greater exposure (it is missing out on one screening per day owing to its running time of 3 hours and 16 minutes). The outfit is also gambling on there being a higher availability of viewers and heightened levels of interest among audiences at a time of year when they are not often enticed to the cinema. Memento is planning to gradually increase the print run to 200 copies, thus trying out an experiment whose results will be followed with keen interest by other distributors. Also of note on Memento’s line-up are the upcoming releases of two films that were popular in competition at Berlin: Stations of the Cross [+see also:
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Q&A: Dietrich Brüggemann
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 by Germany’s Dietrich Brüggemann (winner of the Silver Bear for Best Script – released in France on 29 October) and Macondo [+see also:
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interview: Sudabeh Mortezai
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]
 by Austrian director Sudabeh Mortezai (winner of the Cineuropa Prize at Lecce – read the review and watch the video interview with the director – released in France on 1 January 2015).

Also standing out among the releases for 6 August are the French blockbuster Lucy [+see also:
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 by Luc Besson (which is currently doing exceedingly well at the US box office and will be the opening film at the Locarno Festival next week, starring Scarlett Johansson in the lead – EuropaCorp Distribution), the Franco-Israeli co-production Ana Arabia [+see also:
film review
trailer
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]
 by Amos Gitaï (unveiled in competition at Venice – read the review – Océan Films Distribution), the French thriller Colt 45 [+see also:
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 by Belgian director Fabrice du Welz (read the article – distributed by Warner) and the fantastic Italian comedy I Can Quit Whenever I Want [+see also:
film review
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interview: Sydney Sibilia
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]
 by Sidney Sibilia (a feature debut produced by Fandango and distributed in France by Bellissima Films), which recounts the misadventures of seven friends from university, who are all unemployed or forced to do menial work merely to earn a living, and who join forces in a drug-trafficking business in an attempt to get rich quick.

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(Translated from French)

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