18/10/2006

European film has yet another busy week in cinemas with five of the ten new releases European productions. Some of the eagerly awaited titles include Stephen Frears’ new film The Queen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andy Harries
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile] (see Focus) and Tom Tykwer’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Frears’ title comes straight from Venice with its Best Actress award (distribution Alternative Films) and will have to battle it out with Tykwer’s current blockbuster, Perfume, on release through Kinépolis and still taking the European box office by storm.

France’s lion’s share of three titles will take on US films by Sidney Lumet, Sydney Pollack, Neil LaBute and Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron. The first of these, Inside Paris [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by French writer-director Christophe Honoré, is a bittersweet film set in the Paris of The 400 Blows. While the film may not live up to its claim of similarity to the Nouvelle Vague, where it does succeed, however, is in its display of a fine authenticity through a world between nostalgia and irony, tenderness and despair (see article).

After its screening in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and its French release, it is now being released in Belgium through Les Films de L'Elysée, who are also bringing to the screen O Jerusalem [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Elie Chouraqui, a French co-production with the UK, Greece, Italy and Israel. The film is adapted from a novel by Lapierre & Collins about the creation of the Israeli state told through the story of two brothers who become enemies.

Rounding up this week’s new releases is the second feature by director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, released through Cinélibre (see interview with director). Screened this year in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section (see article), Back Home [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] is a luminous tale that ranges from contemplation to turmoil in a native land.

While Kamel arrives from France and is confronted with social customs he no longer understands, Louisa (the heartrending Meriem Serbah) experiences a dizzying amount of violence, refusing to let go of her dream of a singing career. A silent and impossible love grows between the two, who are linked by a resilient will to break free from the intransigencies and rifts in a country that the director films as bordering on the mythical.

(Translated from French)