17/02/2003 - Excellent start to 2003 for European cinema in France. Best peformers: Crialese's Respiro, Lucas Belvaux' Belgian trilogy and the opening of Mullan's Magdalene Sisters

January 2003 was very positive for European films in France, especially Italy’s Respiro, the UK’s Magdalene [+see also:
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film profile] and Belgian Lucas Belvaux’ trilogy.
Distributed by Pan Européenne, Italian director Emanuele Crialese’s Respiro [+see also:
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film profile] has become something of a popular phenomenon with excellent word-of-mouth attracting 412,000 filmgoers in six weeks on general release. Significantly there has been no sign of a drop in attendance numbers. Respiro, released onto 100 French screens on New Year’s Day, is now being programmed on 138 screens.
French audiences voted with their feet for Lucas Belvaux’s Belgian trilogy Un couple épatant [+see also:
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film profile], Cavale and Après la vie: half a million filmgoers saw the films in six weeks, and they are still going strong on 240 screens.
Released last week onto 85 screens, Peter Mullan’s Golden Lion-winning The Magdalene Sisters [+see also:
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film profile] has already attracted 125,000 filmgoers, scoring the week’s second-highest per-screen average. A good result for a film that is anything but easy. Everything points to The Magdalene Sisters performing on a par with Aki Kaurismaki’s The Man Without A Past [+see also:
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film profile] which closed its theatrical life in France having sold 660,000 tickets.

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(Translated from French)