Memento backs 40-screen release of Iceland’s Jar City
by Annika Pham
Tomorrow, Baltasar Kormákur’s Jar City [+see also:
trailer
film profile] will be released in France by Memento Films on 40 screens, an exceptionally wide release for a Nordic film.
Alexandre Mallet-Guy, managing director of Memento Films, said he was taken by the film when he saw it in Toronto last year. “I found the story line very gripping, plus the acting from Ingvar Sigurdsson absolutely brilliant. I immediately thought that this genre film, with a social twist, would have potential in France,” he said.
Memento will launch the Icelandic thriller on 40 prints (including 10 in Paris) thanks to support from French leading cinema circuit UGC, which gave the film its Discovery label. “This means that the film will have greater visibility and will be shown in better venues, such as the UGC flagship multiplex in Les Halles (Paris). The access to those cinemas is essential to reach the younger audience,” added Mallet-Guy.
Jar City’s marketing campaign has also relied on the popularity of Icelandic novelist Arnaldur Indridason’s eponymous novel, over 150,000 copies of which sold in France. Media advertising therefore concentrated on literary monthly magazines (Lire, Le magazine littéraire), as well as on major weekly magazines (Telerama, le Nouvel Obs, L’Express) and newspapers (Libération). A contra-deal was signed with Icelandair to win a trip to Iceland.
Following his experience on Jar City, Mallet-Guy said he hopes to continue to work with Kormákur. The Icelandic filmmaker’s thriller was one of the biggest hits in years in Iceland in 2006 (over 81,000 admissions) and the country’s submission to the Oscars 2007. The film opens in the UK on Friday on some 13-14 screens through The Works and was hailed by Times Online as “one of the best crime movies of all time”.
Memento Films’ next theatrical release on November 12 will be the French/Swedish co-production Grown Ups [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by first-time director Anna Novion, successfully launched at the Critics’ Week in Cannes 2008.
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
