04/02/2005

“This week is a fairly empty week, so we are getting the right amount of coverage for our film La Niña Santa, which already benefited from a good word of mouth following its Cannes competition entry”, comments Robert Beeson from Artificial Eyes. Indeed only seven new titles are opening today in the UK, two of which with European investments. La Niña Santa (The Holy Girl) by Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, is a co-production between La Pasionaria and Senso in Argentina, Pedro Almodovar and his brother’s production company El Deseo in Spain and Teodora and R&C in Italy. UK art-house distributor Artificial Eye has orchestrated an average size release for the film with 4 prints in total.

The other new European title on offer is Lauras Stern (Laura’s Star) the German animated film by Thilo Rothkirch and Piet de Rycker co-produced by Warner Bros Filmproduktion and Comet Films in Germany. Warner Bros UK is going out with 163 prints, hoping that British children and parents will come and see the family film that attracted over one million cinemagoers in Germany.

But Europe is still very much present on UK screens this week with last Friday’s opener Creep, a UK/German co-production supported by the UK Film Council's Premiere Fund. The horror movie directed by Christopher Smith has grossed over £680,000 in 6 days from 190 prints. “We’re very pleased with the results” said Alasdair Nicolson from Pathe Distribution’s marketing department.

In a totally different genre, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement released by Warner Bros UK has now reached £800,000 at the box office from 121 prints in its 3rd week of release, and Mike Leigh’s Oscar nominated Vera Drake [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is holding on really well after a five-week run, scoring over £1,2m from 60 prints.

Next Friday two big European titles will hit the UK screens after their French opening this week: The Magic Roundabout and The Sea Inside [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Mar Adentro).