19/04/2006

Jean Dujardin – who headed the bill of the highly successful Brice de Nice [+see also:
trailer
film profile], France’s most popular film of 2005 – is back in force again today on 560 screens with the James Bond spoof OSS 117 Le Caire nid d'espions [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Michel Hazanavicius.

Described by its distributor Gaumont Columbia TriStar as a cross between James Bond and Austin Powers, the film will have to battle it out with James McTeigue’s V for Vendetta [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a US production with German Fuenfte Babelsberg Film and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

Eight other features are also being released today, including four (co-)productions from France and one each from Spain, the US, Brazil and Argentina.

As for entirely French cinema, Bac Films is releasing Les enfants du pays [+see also:
trailer
film profile] on 192 screens. Directed and produced by Pierre Javaux with Michel Serrault, Les enfants du pays is the story of an old man, two children and a group of five Senegalese infantry in May 1940 whose destinies cross paths in an abandoned village in the French Ardennes.

Pierre Grise Productions is also releasing Hotel Haribati [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Brice Cauvin on 20 screens. The film received critical acclaim at the Berlinale Forum in 2006 and was produced by Mille et une productions, with international sales being handled by Films Distribution.

With a cast that includes Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins, Javier Câmara and Julie Christie The Secret Life of Words [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isabel Coixet
film profile] by Spain’s Isabel Coixet (see interview in Focus) will be released on 80 screens by Diaphana.

Then there is Turkish director Yesim Ustaoglu’s Waiting for the Clouds [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a French/German co-production (between Flying Moon and Silkroad, with backing from Arte France Cinéma), which is being distributed by Eurozoom on 7 screens.

Lastly, the feature film by South Africa’s Ramadan Suleman, Zulu Love Letter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (JBA Production, FMB2 Films and ZDF Arte) is being released on 12 prints by Les Films du Safran.

(Translated from French)