24/05/2002 - The talented American filmmaker could triumph at this important European festival with About Schmidt. By Callisto Cosulich

Question: Which films suffer the most in the Italian market? Italian, European, Asian, African and North African, Latin American, New Zealand, Australian, Canadian or American? You could say that the inclusion of American cinema is a mere formality since everyone knows they rule the global market. (The only exception being India; perhaps the only country in the world that still applies a strict protectionist policy that regulates the import of foreign films while privileging the national product - which also happens to be extremely popular with the locals. Surely everyone has heard of Bollywood?
Amazingly, it is precisely American cinema that suffers the most, and we don't mean indie productions screened at Sundance but the products of the studios that they themselves sacrifice for a variety of reasons. One such film was Alexander Payne's third feature, Election. This year Payne returned to Cannes with his fifth feature, About Schmidt starring a magnificent Jack Nicholson who's on from start to finish. The only other actor to have achieved this distinction was Bogart over fifty years ago in The Maltese Falcon.
Election is not just any old film. In 1999, U.S. critics voted it their most popular film of the year. You can check out the top 100 films in America in "Premiere" who based their information on the reviews of about twenty specialist publications.
Election was only released onto one of Warner Village Piazza Esedra's five screens at 20.30 in the middle of July (when Italian cinemas are traditionally closed for business); the earlier slot was taken by the summer re-release of Disney's popular cartoon, Tarzan. Election was also distributed by UIP, one of the most powerful U.S. distributors on the planet. A company that is so powerful, that had it only wanted to, could have released Election during the height of the Italian film season onto at least 20 screens contemporaneously. The only problem is that those screens were needed at that time for American Beauty a frontrunner in the Oscar race that year. UIP realised there were similarities between Mendes' and Payne's films and releasing them together would have been a disaster and detrimental to both. So the decision was made to sacrifice one and guess who the designated victim was... Election.
While American Beauty went on to become the box office smash of the year, perhaps 1000 hardy souls saw Election in Italy. We have no doubt that Payne will be compensated with About Schmidt is released. As for Election, you can always find it on homevideo... So look out for it on your next visit to the videostore because you will learn something about a brilliant North American filmmaker.

(Translated from Italian)