18/06/2008

Studio Canal are today launching the fantasy comedy Me Two [+see also:
trailer
film profile] on French screens. Directed by Bruno Lavaine and Nicolas Charlet, the film stars Alain Chabat, Daniel Auteuil and Marina Foïs.

Backed by a viral marketing campaign on the Internet, with profiles of the film’s characters on MySpace and Facebook, this debut feature hopes to repeat the success of another comedy produced by Chez Wam (company headed by Chabat): Rent A Wife [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2006).

Written by the two directors who made their comic debut on television, Me Two retraces the misadventures of Gilles Gabriel (Chabat), a 1980s singer who dreams of making a comeback. After an accident, however, he finds himself in the body of Jean-Christian Ranu (Auteuil), a mediocre accountant in a multinational company.

This is the start of a difficult cohabitation between two very different characters living in one body (Ranu hears Gabriel speak to him like an inner voice), a metempsychosis which transforms the private and professional life of the timid accountant.

The film was made on a generous budget of €9.06m, including €1.75m in co-production investment and pre-sales from TF1 Films Production and pre-sales from Canal + and Ciné Cinéma.

This week’s eight other releases include another debut French feature that explores the fantasy realm: Eric Forestier’s La troisième partie du monde (“The Third Part of the World”), starring Clémence Poésy, Gaspard Ulliel and Italian actress Maya Sansa (see news).

Released by Shellac on 43 screens, the film was produced by Château-Rouge Production for a budget of €1.38m. This included an advance on receipts from the National Film Centre (CNC).

Fresh from the recent Cannes Film Festival, two enticing European co-productions are also hitting screens this Wednesday. Lauded in the Un Certain Regard section, Bent Hamer’s Norwegian/German/French feature O’Horten [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (see news) is being released by Océan Films on 29 screens.

Meanwhile, Haut et Court are launching a 54-print run of Bouli Lanners’ Belgian/French co-production Eldorado [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (see interview), which was unveiled in the Directors’ Fortnight and won the Europa Cinemas Label Award.

Finally, Pierre Grise Distribution are releasing on 25 screens Carole Laure’s La capture (“The Capture”), a minority French co-production (Flach Films) with Canada, which had a sidebar screening at last year’s Locarno Film Festival.

(Translated from French)