16/12/2005

Among six new films opening this week four are European, the two ‘biggest’ being Christian Carion’s quintessentially European Merry Christmas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christian Carion
interview: Christophe Rossignon
film profile] (see the film focus) distributed by Sony Pictures on 25 prints, and Charles Sturridge’s Irish/US family film Lassie released by Entertainment Film Distributors.
The French entry for a Best Foreign language Oscar nomination this year is carried by very positive press reviews, a publicity campaign to which actress Diane Kruger gave a helpful hand, and healthy advertising campaign orchestrated by the US major’s UK distribution arm Sony Pictures Releasing. "A Christmas film for all ages" according to London entertainment magazine Time Out which gave it 4 stars.
The WW1 drama will play against Charles Sturridge’s pre-WW2 family entertainment Lassie, based on the original 1940 novel by Eric Knight. The famous collie dog adventures set in the lust countryside of Ireland and the Isle of Man (thanks to those island’s attractive tax incentives) will have to rely on its nostalgia card to lure some of the family audience away from Peter Jackson’s King Kong released simultaneously by UIP.

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Two other European films have a one-screen platform release in London today with other regional bookings set for the upcoming weeks : the Icelandic musical film Screaming Masterpiece released by Soda Pictures will have a special evening presentation tonight at the Curson Soho with sponsorship from One Little Indian Records and Reyka Vodka, and live performance from the former frontman of Gus Gus band Daniel Agúst. Ari Alexander’s look at the Icelandic music industry was picked up by Soda after the film’s screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
The other European platform release is the Belgian/French first feature film by Bouli Lanners Ultranova [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bouli Lanners
film profile] (see the film focus) released by ICA. Lanners came last November to support the UK promotion of his film which recently won the Best Feature Film Award and FIPRESCI Award in Gijon, Spain.