Golden Door up against Ensemble, c'est tout

21/03/2007

In an irony of the calendar, two films that open today both could have starred Charlotte Gainsbourg. However, while the actress shines in Golden Door [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandre Mallet-Guy
interview: Charlotte Gainsbourg
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Fabrizio Mosca
film profile] by Italian director Emanuele Crialese, she was replaced by Audrey Tautou in Claude Berri’s Ensemble, c'est tout [+see also:
trailer
film profile], as a ski accident forced Gainsbourg to abandon the role just before the film went into production.

Based on Anne Gavalda’s 2004 eponymous novel, Ensemble, c'est tout is the 20th feature by the 72 year-old Berri, a key personality in French cinema. The film, whose release has been promoted by an intensive poster campaign in Paris, opens through Pathé Distribution on 386 screens. Heading the bill are two actors very much in vogue, Tautou and Guillaume Canet, flanked here by Laurent Strocker and Françoise Bertin.

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The film revolves around the life of three very different characters in a large apartment who end up getting along against the odds (see news).

The €12.2m Ensemble, c'est tout comes from the slate of Hirsch and Pathé Renn and received funding of €2.3m from TF1 International (€1.8m in pre-sales and €500,000 in co-production) and pre-sales from Canal +.

The other top release today is Crialese’s French/Italian co-production Golden Door (see Focus), starring Gainsbourg and Vincenzo Amato.

Released by ID Memento on 142 screens, the film will open on a further 15 in its second week. Crialese is hoping that his Venice Silver Lion Revelation film will be just as successful in France as his previous hit Respiro: Grazia’s Island [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Meanwhile, Bac Films is releasing 120 prints of Jérôme Bonnell’s J'attends quelqu'un [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see article).

Critically acclaimed for his first two features (Olga’s Chignon and Pale Eyes [+see also:
film review
interview: Jérôme Bonnell
interview: Nathalie Boutefeu
film profile], see Focus), the young director has cast such well-known actors as Emmanuelle Devos, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Eric Caravaca in this Films des Tournelles production, which included backing from CNC advances on receipts and the Ile de France region.

Along with two US titles this week, other French productions to hit cinemas are Delphine Gleize’s L'Homme qui rêvait d'un enfant (dist. Haut et Court, eight screens) and Marie Helia’s feature debut Microclimat [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which is also the first film to be produced and distributed by new Breton outfit Paris-Brest.

Artédis is releasing German/Austrian co-production Unveiled [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Angelina Maccarone, which performed well at the 2005 Karlovy Vary Film Festival (see article), on 10 screens, as well as two documentaries, Christian Rouaud’s Les Lip, l'imagination au pouvoir (Pierre Grise Distribution, 25 prints) and Hélène de Crécy’s La Consultation (Ad Vitam, 15 screens).