20/11/2002 - New German cinema heads up the new French releases with Heaven and Grill Point, alongside Bellocchio's My Mother's Smile and the UK's Bend it Like Beckham

The overwhelming majority of the films being released in France on Wednesday 20 November have a distinct European flavour: two German, three Italian, three French and one English feature as well as a Franco-Belgian coproduction. All in all an exceptional line up, especially since the new James Bond is this week’s lone American release.
The new German generation is well represented by Tom (Run Lola Run) Tykwer’s Heaven and Andreas Dresen’s Grill Point. Heaven, produced by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley), is a poetic thriller based on the last screenplay by the late Krysztof Kieslowski who died in 1996, and is set in Turin and Tuscany. Grill Point won a Silver Bear at the last edition of the Berlinale.
From Italy comes Marco Bellocchio’s L’ora di religione (My Mother’s Smile); scheduled for release onto 40 screens. Bellocchio’s film was well-received by the critics, especially “Le Monde” who called it “elegant, complex, subtle... driven by an authentic rage against compromise and concealment”.
The Italian selection also includes Alla rivoluzione sulla 2 cavalli by Maurizio Sciarra and Fabio Carpi’s Nobel.
Spain’s Inès Paris and Daniela Fejerman’s A mi madre le gustan las mujeres is coming out on 20 screens.
However, this week’s highlights have to be the UK's Bend it like Beckman by Gurinder Chadha, the winner of numerous awards, that will be released on to 180 screens, up against the 250 prints of the Catherine Deneuve-driven Au plus près du paradis directed by Claire Denis.

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(Translated from French)