Giannoli’s ambitious In the Beginning hits screens

11/11/2009

Unveiled in competition at the latest Cannes Film Festival, Xavier Giannoli’s fourth feature In the Beginning [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] is the major attraction among the 15 new releases hitting screens today.

Acclaimed by most critics, although not unanimously, the film is being launched by EuropaCorp Distribution on around 280 screens in a version that is 15 minutes shorter than the Cannes screening (see review).

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In the Beginning traces the misadventures of a small-time crook (an outstanding François Cluzet), who deceives a whole region in economic crisis by starting a huge motorway construction site. The film is uniquely ambitious in French cinema, as it tries to encompass both the epic and personal, incorporating many different characters (played by Emmanuelle Devos, Gérard Depardieu, Soko and Vincent Rottiers).

Meanwhile, Pathé Distribution pays tribute to the memory of Claude Berri by releasing a 435-print run of Treasure [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which the director started shooting before his death in January. François Dupeyron then stepped in to take the reins of this marital comedy, starring Alain Chabat and Mathilde Seigner.

European production is also represented on this Wednesday’s line-up by Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (presented out of competition on the Croisette in May - see review - released by Metropolitan Filmexport on 220 screens); Eugène Green’s Portuguese/French co-production The Portuguese Nun (see news - Océan Films on seven screens); The Red Riding Trilogy, which includes Julian Jarrold’s 1974, James Marsh’s 1980 and Anand Tucker’s 1983 (MC4 Distribution/C Comme au Cinéma on three sets of screens); and Maria Lindberg’s Finnish animated feature Moomin and Midsummer Madness (distributed by KMBO - 17 screens).

Also hitting screens are Séverine Cornamusaz’s French feature Animal Heart [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (ADR Distribution on one screen), and three documentaries: Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea’s fascinating Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (MK2 Distribution - 15 screens); Xavier de Lauzanne’s With One Voice (Aloest Distribution - 25 screens); and Olivier Zuchuat’s Swiss/French co-production Far from the Villages (distributed by Hévadis Film - two screens) .