Notizie

The French box office edged up by 0.5% year-on-year in 2024 hitting 181.3M admissions for an overall gross of roughly $1.36B, according to figures released by France’s National Cinema Centre (Cnc).

The body said that while the overall admissions figure for 2024 remained some 12.8% below pre-pandemic levels, the results were encouraging.

It noted that the pre-pandemic gap had closed in the last eight months to 2.7%, and that the numbers were better than the U.S. and other comparable markets in Europe, such as the UK, which it said had seen a 1% drop in receipts, and Spain, where there had been a 7% year-on-year fall.

The body said the biggest cause for celebration was the performance of local movies, which accounted for 44% of admissions, in comparison to 36.7% for U.S. films.

This is the highest market share for French films since 2008 when Dany Boon hit Welcome To The Sticks and Asterix At The Olympic Games,...

French director Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman, Happy New Year, The Beautiful Story) will be honored at this year’s Venice Film Festival with the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award, a prize dedicated to a “personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.”

Lelouch will receive the prize Monday, Sept. 2, at Venice’s Sala Grande ahead of the out-of-competition screening of his latest feature, Finalement, a musical fantasy starring Kad Merad (Welcome to the Sticks, The Chorus). Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi and Françoise Gillard co-star. The film was produced by Les Films 13 in co-production with France 2 Cinéma and Laurent Dassault Rond-Point. Metropolitan Filmexport is handling international sales.

“Claude Lelouch is one of the top directors of French cinema, an excellent interpreter of its ‘quality,’ albeit alien to its main currents,” said Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera.

“Amelie” and “The Intouchables,” two of France’s all-time biggest box office hits, will be re-released by their respective studios, Ugc and Gaumont/Studiocanal, during the Olympic Games.

With three to four million Olympics fans expected to descend on Paris during the Olympics, French studios are looking to capitalize on the presence of these floods of international visitors and lure them into air-conditioned theaters.

These re-released movies will be subtitled in English which will mark a first in France, at least in recent history.

“The Intouchables,” a 2009 comedy starring Omar Sy as a street-smart caretaker working for a quadriplegic aristocrat, will be re-released by Gaumont and Studiocanal. Sy, who delivered a breakthrough performance in the movie, won a Cesar Award for best actor, becoming the first French Black actor to win such prize in the country. The actor went on to star in “Lupin,” the hit Netflix series.

Directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache,...

Costa-Gavras, the celebrated Franco-Greek master who’s won an Oscar and a Palme d’Or, has teamed with French sales company Playtime for his latest film, “Last Breath.”

Currently in post-production, “Last Breath” boasts a strong international cast led by Denis Podalydès (“Deception”) and Kad Merad (“Welcome to the Sticks”), who star alongside Marilyne Canto (“The Starry Sky Above Me”), Charlotte Rampling (“Dune”), Ángela Molina (“Broken Embraces”), Karin Viard (“Strangers by Night”), Hiam Abbass (“Succession”) and Agathe Bonitzer (“Maria Montessori”).

Costa-Gavras penned the film, based on the book “Le Dernier Souffle” by Régis Debray and Claude Grange. A Cannes regular, Costa-Gavras won the Palme d’Or for “Missing” in 1982, served on the jury in 1976 and won the Jury Prize with his political thriller “Z” which went on to win an Oscar. He has also been feted as guest of honor at Cannes Classics, the selection dedicated to heritage films.

“We...

French composer, pianist and conductor Philippe Rombi will be the guest of honour at the 24th World Soundtrack Awards in Belgium on October 16, 2024.

Rombi is best known for his collaborations with François Ozon on films including Swimming Pool, Young And Beautiful, In The House, Potiche, Frantz and last year’s The Crime Is Mine.

The composer has been nominated for four Cesar awards and two Lumieres. His other credits include Oscar nominee Joyeux Noël from Christian Carion, Danny Boon’s Welcome To The Sticks and Christophe Barratier’s The Time Of Secrets.

Rombi will attend the awards at Film Fest Ghent in October,...

Line Renaud and Dany Boon give low-key, sincere performances as they reunite for an eventful cab ride through Paris

A fourth collaboration between French funnyman Dany Boon and one-time music-hall sensation Line Renaud (who played his mother in 2008 Euro-hit Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis), this two-hander has a strong conceit: Madeleine (Renaud) relives her life in the backseat of the cab driving her through Paris to a nursing home, with troubled chauffeur Charles (Boon) as her confessor. The film’s gaze is fixed in the rear-view mirror far more than the Before Sunset-style dalliance it occasionally resembles, but it’s not straightforwardly nostalgic.

Madeleine’s tale starts off rose-tinted: played in flashback by Alice Isaaz, she has a wartime romance with an American soldier, which produces a son. But after her Yank beau heads back over the Atlantic, she takes up with wrong ’un Ray (Jérémie Laheurte), who resents the...

Pathé feature “Driving Madeleine” has been acquired by Parkland Entertainment for a U.K. and Ireland theatrical release, Variety can confirm.

The French-language film, which played in the official selection at TIFF last year, stars Line Renaud and Dany Boon (“Welcome to the Sticks”).

In “Driving Madeleine” Boon plays Charles, a Parisian taxi driver struggling with the stress of mounting debt and a collapsing marriage. But when he picks up 92-year-old Madeleine (Renaud), his life turns around. The nonagenarian is about to be moved into a care home but, before that, she wants to enjoy one last drive through the French capital to re-visit some of her most poignant memories. Initially, grumpy Charles doesn’t want to take the job but as he spends the day with Madeleine he is soon charmed by her warmth and joie de vivre – and shocked as she slowly reveals the incredible story of her life.

We’re now in the month of Cannes Film Festival 2023 and they have a few more surprises up their sleeves thanks to the announcement of their Cannes Classics lineup. After being heavily rumored, it’s now confirmed a posthumous film from the legendary Jean-Luc Godard will premiere at the festival, billed as “Trailer of the film that will never exist: Phony Wars” and clocking at 20 minutes. Described as “the ultimate gesture of cinema,” Godard wrote this accompanying text: “No longer trusting the billions of diktats of the alphabet to give back their freedom to the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a true language by returning to the places of past shootings, while taking into account the present stories.”

Also amongst the lineup is Room 999 featuring interviews with James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, and Alice Rohrwacher; a mini Ozo retro; Man Ray restorations scored...

2019’s Murder Mystery was an international romp which saw Jennifer Aniston’s crime novel-obsessed hairdresser and Adam Sandler’s cop take a European trip and get swept up in a whodunit. It was a hit for Netflix becoming one of the streamer’s most watched movies and a sequel was greenlit which is now upon us.

Aniston and Sandler are back as husband and wife Audrey and Nick but who else has returned and who has joined the cast? Where have you seen these actors before? Mystery solved!

Adeel Aktar as The Maharajar

British actor, Aktar is back as the Maharajar. He’s been in all manner of films and shows in the UK, and has a BAFTA as well as several more nominations. You might recognise him as Faisal from Four Lions, Lestrade in the Enola Holmes movies or from a whole raft of quality British shows include Utopia,...

Cohen Media Group has acquired U.S. domestic distribution rights to Toronto film “Driving Madeleine,” according to a report in Variety.

The French language film was directed by Christian Carion (“Joyeux Noel”) and is playing in the Official Selection at the Toronto Film Festival.

“Driving Madeleine” stars Dany Boon (“Bienvenue chez les ch’tis”) who plays Charles, a taxi driver in Paris who is struggling under mounting stress. His debts are coming due, his driver’s license is in danger of being suspended because of numerous fines, and his marriage is falling apart. He has no way of knowing his life is about to be transformed when he picks up Madeleine, a 92-year-old woman who is soon to move into a care facility. She asks Charles to make certain stops during what may be her last ride through the city. Charles grumbles but is slowly charmed by Madeleine’s warmth and...

Victoria Bedos, the creator and co-writer of “La Famille Belier,” the hit French movie that was remade into Sian Heder’s Oscar-nominated “Coda,” is getting ready to make her feature debut with Focus Features/Universal in France.

For her directorial debut, “Leo et moi,” Bedos will once tell the bittersweet story of a teenager set against an unusual backdrop, a theme she probed in “Famille Belier.” “Leo et moi” (working title) is produced by Hélène Cases at Lionceau Films and follows 14-year-old Marie-Luce Bison, who lives with her widowed father at a group home for seniors in rural France. Universal will distribute the film in theaters in France and Focus Features has global rights.

In the film, Marie, growing up as an outsider surrounded by elderly people and her distant father, isn’t like anyone else at school and the other kids notice it. One day, fed up of being bullied by her classsmates,...

Pathé, France’s leading film studio and owner of the country’s largest theatrical circuit, is set to leap into television with a dedicated division and an ambitious drama slate from well-known filmmakers.

The new division will be headed by Aude Albano, a former senior executive at Capa Drama, whose track record includes the French-produced international hit period drama “Versailles.” Albano said she was looking forward to “take part in the launch of Pathé’s new series production branch with a focus on developing and producing upscale drama series in France and abroad.”

The roster of series in development at Pathé includes “mostly large-scale period drama revolving around iconic French figures, in line with Pathé’s DNA,” Pathé CEO Ardavan Safaee to Variety.

Among the series developed by the company is a show about Napoléon that Jean-François Richet (“Mesrine”) is creating, along with a series about a Black musketeer created...

StudioCanal Germany and local independent Prokino have signed a major deal that will see StudioCanal take over the physical and digital distribution of Prokino’s back catalog for the German market.

The deal, announced Thursday, includes more than 100 titles released by Prokino in German theaters in 2019 or earlier. Among the biggest hits are Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire (2008), French-language blockbusters Amélie (2001) and Welcome to the Sticks (2008), and Emil Atef’s 2018 Romy Schneider biopic 3 Days in Quiberon, which won seven German Film Awards, including for best film, best director and best actress for Marie Bäumer as Schneider.

StudioCanal already ...

StudioCanal Germany and local independent Prokino have signed a major deal that will see StudioCanal take over the physical and digital distribution of Prokino’s back catalog for the German market.

The deal, announced Thursday, includes more than 100 titles released by Prokino in German theaters in 2019 or earlier. Among the biggest hits are Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire (2008), French-language blockbusters Amélie (2001) and Welcome to the Sticks (2008), and Emil Atef’s 2018 Romy Schneider biopic 3 Days in Quiberon, which won seven German Film Awards, including for best film, best director and best actress for Marie Bäumer as Schneider.

StudioCanal already ...

Two French films, Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, and the hand-drawn Josep, have won the 2020 European Film Awards for best comedy and best animated film, respectively.

In The Big Hit, French star Kad Merad (Welcome to the Sticks) plays a past-his-prime actor who attempts to give drama lessons to a group of prisoners staging a version of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

The film premiered at the special, three-day Special Cannes 202o film festival, held in October after the coronavirus pandemic forced the regular 2020 event, planned for May, to cancel.

Josep, the feature debut of editorial journalist Aurélien Froment. better known as award-winning ...

Two French films, Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, and the hand-drawn Josep, have won the 2020 European Film Awards for best comedy and best animated film, respectively.

In The Big Hit, French star Kad Merad (Welcome to the Sticks) plays a past-his-prime actor who attempts to give drama lessons to a group of prisoners staging a version of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

The film premiered at the special, three-day Special Cannes 202o film festival, held in October after the coronavirus pandemic forced the regular 2020 event, planned for May, to cancel.

Josep, the feature debut of editorial journalist Aurélien Froment. better known as award-winning ...

A trio of laffers — from France, Spain, and Finland —have been nominated for this year’s European Film Awards in the best European comedy category.

The European Film Academy announced its 2020 nominees for best Euro comedy on Tuesday, naming a final shortlist containing Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, Aritz Moreno’s The Advantages of Traveling By Train, and Ladies of Steel from Finish director Pamela Tola.

Kad Merad, of Welcome to the Sticks fame, stars in The Big Hit as a once-famous actor down on his luck who decides to give drama lessons to prisoners in an attempt to stage Samuel ...

A trio of laffers — from France, Spain, and Finland —have been nominated for this year’s European Film Awards in the best European comedy category.

The European Film Academy announced its 2020 nominees for best Euro comedy on Tuesday, naming a final shortlist containing Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, Aritz Moreno’s The Advantages of Traveling By Train, and Ladies of Steel from Finish director Pamela Tola.

Kad Merad, of Welcome to the Sticks fame, stars in The Big Hit as a once-famous actor down on his luck who decides to give drama lessons to prisoners in an attempt to stage Samuel ...

Lina Soualem is emerging from the shadow of her famous parents – French actor Zinedine Soualem and Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas, seen recently in HBO’s “Succession” – by making documentaries about them and their families.

Playing in the Feature Documentary Competition at Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, “Their Algeria” tells the story of how her paternal grandparents Aïcha and Mabrouk had decided to separate after 62 years. The couple had had an arranged marriage in Algeria before spending most of their time together in the medieval town of Thiers, central France.

This journey allowed the director to make a film about the relationship between France and Algeria, incorporating archive footage from the 1940s and 1950s. Her grandparents left Algeria in the 1950s intending to return when hostilities caused by colonial rule died down.

“I had no idea how my grandparents were involved in that political and historical context,” says Soualem. “I...

Kad Merad, star of Dany Boon’s “Welcome to the Sticks,” the highest-grossing film of all time in France, will star in Stéphane Berthomieux’s “Playback,” which has been picked up for international sales by Paris-based Luxbox.

Produced by director Mathieu Demy, whose credits include Salma Hayek-starrer “Americano” and TV series “The Bureau,” “Playback,” the fiction feature debut of documentarian Berthomieux. Pic co-stars Déborah François, star of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Palme d’Or winning “The Child,” and Geraldine Chaplin.

Variety has also had exclusive access to the film’s poster.

Co-written by Demy and Berthomieux, “Playback” begins on the day of Dean Martin’s death, when Daniel, a French crooner, decides to sell his vintage American car to go to Los Angeles for the funeral of his idol. Witnessing the demolition of Las Vegas’ Sands Hotel — the ultimate symbol of his Dean Martin-esque fantasy — Daniel kills off his beloved crooner persona,...

The project is filming and set for a 2020 delivery.

Paris-based mk2 films will kick off sales this Afm on Emmanuel Courcol’s French comedy The Big Hit starring Kad Merad as a struggling actor, running theatre workshops in a local prison, who takes a rag-tag troupe of convicts on tour with a performance of Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot.

Agat Films is lead producing with actor-director Dany Boon on board as a co-producer through his company Les Productions du Ch’timi. Memento Films has taken French rights.

Merad, who is best known internationally for his role in...

The original film is still France’s third-biggest box office hit.

Yalla Yalla, the joint venture between Dubai-based Front Row Filmed Entertainment and financing, production and sales outfit Rocket Science, has acquired remake rights for an Arabic-language version of the French hit comedy-drama Intouchables.

Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s 2011 original starred Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet as a live-in carer from the wrong side of the tracks and a wealthy quadriplegic, who strike up an unlikely friendship.

To this day, it remains the third biggest box office hit in France, after Titanic and Dany Boon’s Welcome To The Sticks,...

Kad Merad, Marina Hands, Laurent Stocker, Patrick Pineau and Sofian Khammes star. An Agat Films production sold by mk2. Filming is set to begin on 22 October for Un Triomphe (translation: A Triumph), Emmanuel Courcol’s second feature after Ceasefire (unveiled on the Piazza Grande at Locarno in 2016). The cast includes Kad Merad, Marina Hands, Laurent Stocker (winner of the Best Newcomer César award in 2008 for Hunting and Gathering; appreciated in Miss and the Doctors,...

French thriller writer Maxime Chattam’s “Predateurs” is being adapted for TV by a powerhouse team of producers and by Alexandre Charlot and Franck Magnier, the writing duo behind “Welcome to the Sticks,” the highest-grossing film ever in French history.

The series will be set in a near future when the world is on the brink of war because of climate change and violent migration policies. The story follows a military police inquiry, led by Lieutenant Frewin, into a series of savage killings. But the young soldiers whose bodies are found hideously mutilated have not been killed by the enemy. Frewin knows that only a psychopath could have perpetrated the killings.

Isolani Pictures is the Paris-based drama production company co-founded by Alexandre Richardot and Daniel J. Cottin. It is pacting with Mks, a joint venture between Marvelous Productions and French shingle Kabo Family. Marvelous is the production house founded by...

Lovable yet easily irritable French comic star Kad Merad has lined up a string of hits (Welcome to the Sticks, The Chorus) and misses (Bangkok, We Have a Problem!, F.B.I. Frog Butthead Investigators) over the past decade, with each new summer bringing a new broad studio comedy for him to headline. This year is no exception, with Merad playing the lead role in the fun if facile Looking For Teddy, a caper about two complete strangers who join forces to find a missing stuffed animal. (Note: The original title, Le Doudou, is the word French kids use to describe such toys. For ...

Lovable yet easily irritable French comic star Kad Merad has lined up a string of hits (Welcome to the Sticks, The Chorus) and misses (Bangkok, We Have a Problem!, F.B.I. Frog Butthead Investigators) over the past decade, with each new summer bringing a new broad studio comedy for him to headline. This year is no exception, with Merad playing the lead role in the fun if facile Looking For Teddy, a caper about two complete strangers who join forces to find a missing stuffed animal. (Note: The original title, Le Doudou, is the word French kids use to describe such toys. For ...

Frustrated with the lack of diversity and inclusion in the French film industry, 16 black actresses took to the red carpet in Cannes on Wednesday night, staging a protest against racism just days after 82 women, led by Cannes jury president Cate Blanchett, launched their own call for gender equality.

Led by actress Aïssa Maïga (“Bamako”), the group struck a defiant note while promoting a new book, “Noire N’est Pas Mon Métier” (My Profession is Not Black), which Maïga co-authored.

Speaking with Variety, the actress called it “a historic moment” as 16 black women linked arms on the red carpet outside the Palais for the first time. “It was beyond my wildest dreams,” she said. “For 20 years, I’ve been acting, and I’ve never felt like this.

“This was a statement we wanted to make to the entire world.”

The book features candid stories about the prejudice faced by black actresses in the French film industry.

Cannes — Studiocanal, Europe’s biggest TV-film production-distribution-sales company, owned by Vivendi’s Canal Plus Group, has closed international sales on Danish family relationship drama “Ride Upon the Storm,” a flagship title in Studiocanal’s drive into high-end European drama series.

Adam Price’s follow-up to “Borgen,” “Ride Upon the Storm,” starring Lars Mikkelsen (“House of Cards”), has been acquired by a broad gamut of TV operators from South African pay TV network M-Net Africa, to public broadcasters such as Tvnz for New Zealand and Rte Eire, as well as Sbs Australia, which has a strong line in foreign-language series.

Further buyers include Lumière Benelux, Rtvs Slovakia, Nc+ in Poland; and Lrt Lithuania. Studiocanal sold the drama to Telefonica’s Movistar + in Spain; upscale European broadcaster Arte has rights to French and German-speaking Europe. Danish pubcaster Dr, which lead-produced the drama with Arte France and Sam le Français, aired “Ride Upon the Storm” from September.

Michel Galabru (right) and Louis de Funès in 'Le gendarme et les gendarmettes.' 'La Cage aux Folles' actor Michel Galabru dead at 93 Michel Galabru, best known internationally for his role as a rabidly reactionary politician in the comedy hit La Cage aux Folles, died in his sleep today, Jan. 4, '16, in Paris. The Moroccan-born Galabru (Oct. 27, 1922, in Safi) was 93. Throughout his nearly seven-decade career, Galabru was seen in more than 200 films – or, in his own words, “182 days,” as he was frequently cast in minor roles that required only a couple of days of work. He also appeared on stage, training at the Comédie Française and studying under film and stage veteran Louis Jouvet (Bizarre Bizarre, Quai des Orfèvres), and was featured in more than 70 television productions. Michel Galabru movies Michel Galabru's film debut took place in Maurice de Canonge's La bataille du feu (“The Battle of Fire,...

Marie Dubois, actress in French New Wave films, dead at 77 (image: Marie Dubois in the mammoth blockbuster 'La Grande Vadrouille') Actress Marie Dubois, a popular French New Wave personality of the '60s and the leading lady in one of France's biggest box-office hits in history, died Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at a nursing home in Lescar, a suburb of the southwestern French town of Pau, not far from the Spanish border. Dubois, who had been living in the Pau area since 2010, was 77. For decades she had been battling multiple sclerosis, which later in life had her confined to a wheelchair. Born Claudine Huzé (Claudine Lucie Pauline Huzé according to some online sources) on January 12, 1937, in Paris, the blue-eyed, blonde Marie Dubois began her show business career on stage, being featured in plays such as Molière's The Misanthrope and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. François Truffaut discovery: 'Shoot the...

Rialto Pictures has largely been known for the excellent catalog of classic films, which they lovingly restore and bring back to theaters throughout the year. But 2013 marks a bit of change for the company. They have teamed up with French distributor StudioCanal and launched Rialto Premieres, a shingle that will allow them to bring  first-run films to the United States, giving an audience to pictures that might never make their way stateside -- and their first offering is the French comedy "The Stroller Strategy."Directed by Clément Michel and starring Raphaël Personnaz ("The Princess of Montpensier," "Anna Karenina"), Charlotte Le Bon ("Mood Indigo") and Jérôme Commandeur ("Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis") tells the "Three Men And A Baby"-esque story of Thomas Platz, who unexpected becomes the guardian of a baby, and tries to use his newfound fatherhood to win back his ex-girlfriend Marie. And this exclusive trailer for the movie,...

Dany Boon, Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Frot have emerged as the highest paid actors in France last year.

Actor Danny Boon They head the league table in an annual survey by the newspaper Le Figaro, which is of particular interest this year following the outburst by Vincent Maraval, one of the chiefs of production company Wild Bunch, who blasted Gallic star wages and the generous subsidy system for cinema in an article in Le Monde at the start of the year.

Top of the poll is Dany Boon with 3.6 millions euros (for four films), followed by Gérard Depardieu with 2.3 million euros (four films), Catherine Frot with 2.2 million euros (three films), Gad Elmaleh at 2.1 million euros (three films) and Alain Chabat with two million euros (one film).

The newspaper suggest that Boon is the best paid actor in Europe, thanks to the success of Welcome To The Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis...

A suppressed inferiority complex lies behind Hollywood's attitude to New York mobsters

Many nations experience antipathy between one end of the country and the other. In England, "gritty" northerners scorn "soft" southerners. Like those southerners, most of the French too think it's grim up north: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, which celebrated this aversion, was a box-office knockout.

In America, north-south discord produced the bloodiest war in the country's history, as Spielberg's Lincoln will soon be reminding us. Today however, the northern rustbelt and southern sunbelt seem to rub along. It's on the east-west axis that animus persists. Surely this can only be light-hearted?. A feud between east coast and west coast hip-hop fans in the 1990s yielded a wave of night-club brawls; shootings were blamed on it.

In August 2011, the Atlantic coast was stricken by the first serious earthquake that most easterners had experienced. Time, you might have thought, for...

Reinforcing Tom Cruise's status as an international superstar, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol had no problem leading the foreign box office for the third weekend in a row. The fourth installment in the espionage franchise added $46.2 million from 43 markets, and including Monday and Tuesday grosses has already made $245.7 million overseas. The movie opened last Monday (Boxing Day) in the United Kingdom, and has earned a strong $14.3 million through its first nine days there. Including its domestic revenues, Ghost Protocol is at around $390 million worldwide, and should pass $400 million in the next few days. Similar to the domestic box office, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows wound up in second place behind Ghost Protocol with an estimated $34 million from 45 markets. It debuted in first place in Russia ($6.4 million, up 25 percent from the first Sherlock) and Mexico ($3.1 million), and currently has a $106 million foreign total. The adventure sequel still has six major markets left to open,...

For the third-straight weekend, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 remained unbeatable in the foreign marketplace. The movie added $40.4 million from 73 markets for an overseas total of $344.8 million. Including previews, it opened in first place in South Korea with $4.4 million (down a bit from Eclipse and New Moon). With $592.8 million worldwide (domestic plus foreign), Breaking Dawn already ranks as the sixth highest-grossing movie of the year, and it's currently on pace to finish with close to $700 million. Puss in Boots expanded in to a total of 26 markets and earned $22.7 million. It had a strong $9.4 million opening in France (a noteworthy improvement over Kung Fu Panda 2) and also got off to a solid start in Mexico ($3.7 million). The movie's impressive total in Russia passed $50 million, and it should wind up as the third highest-grossing movie ever there behind Avatar and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Puss has an early foreign total of $89 million,...

Intouchables storms the box office as critics hail it as a comedy masterpiece

It's the surprise French box office hit of the year: a caustic comedy about a quadriplegic aristocrat and his awkward, black home-help from one of Paris's poor, suburban high-rise ghettoes.

Intouchables – or the Untouchables – has confounded French critics who dreaded the possibility of a cliche-ridden, ham-fisted take on the poor suburban "banlieue", race and disability. Instead, the film has been hailed as a masterpiece, and the comedy of the year. It sold 2m tickets in under a week. Paris crowds are queueing around the block and pre-booking tickets. It is set to open in 40 countries, including the United States in March, where Harvey Weinstein has bought an option for an American remake.

"Is this the new Amélie?" asked the daily Liberation, comparing it to the whimsical French romantic comedy that captivated foreign audiences 10 years ago. Critics are...

Ten years ago, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's syrupy story about a simpering busybody, played by Audrey Tautou, became a worldwide hit. So why is the dream still not over in 2011?

I have it on good authority that Amélie turned Montmartre into a "tourist shithole". The Café des 2 Moulins, the film's key location, was flooded with sightseers, and sold on. Someone put a banner over Rue Lepic reading "Welcome to the quartier of Amélie Poulain". Megaphones pumped out accordion music in the street, turning the area into some kind of Marcel Marceau wet dream. Amélie has that kind of effect. Watching it for the second time on the eve of its 10th-anniversary re-release, I still find Audrey Tautou's boulevard busybody simpering to the point of psychosis. (As our own Peter Bradshaw said of her flat-rearranging antics: "Does the director know that this is precisely what Charles Manson claimed to love doing?...

Black Swan is proving to not only be a surprise hit domestically, but also a major draw overseas as well: the Darren Aronofsky-directed ballet drama inched ahead of chart regulars The Green Hornet and Tangled to take the top spot at the foreign box office over the weekend. French comedy Rien a Declarer (Nothing to Declare) was once again a strong presence, while The King's Speech reached a few milestones on its already-impressive run. Black Swan earned $19.4 million from 34 territories for a foreign total of $72.6 million. It opened in third place in France and Mexico with $4.7 million and $1.3 million, respectively, and also had strong holdover performances in Germany ($2 million), the United Kingdom ($1.7 million) and Russia ($1.7 million). Its worldwide (domestic plus foreign) total now rests north of $172 million, and with openings in Italy, Spain and a handful of other countries next weekend it should be able to reach $200 million in the near future.

With one of its best weekends so far, Tangled placed first at the foreign box office for the fourth time in the past month. The big story, though, occurred in France, where local comedy Rien a Declarer (Nothing to Declare) dominated with one of the top openings ever there. The Green Hornet, The King's Speech and Black Swan expanded to new locations and held their ground. For the first weekend in a long time, it appears that the box office was nearly on par with last year, when Avatar led with $79.4 million. Playing at around 85 percent of the international marketplace, Tangled added $23.7 million to bring its impressive foreign total to $285.1 million. The fairy tale had great first place debuts in Spain ($5.7 million), Sweden ($1.8 million) and Norway ($936,000). It also held well in the United Kingdom, dipping just nine percent to $7.4 million. Tangled has earned over $477 million worldwide (domestic plus foreign), and,...

Overseas box office takes tend to be a mysterious thing. We don't pay much attention to them at all in the United States, except when looking at record breaking totals because then the numbers are bigger, and bigger numbers look cooler. And every once and a while we use them to roll our eyes at a sequel when we realize that while a terrible film barely broke even domestically, it sold three times as many tickets in Europe and thus gets another iteration. So just what movies are making the money overseas?

We'll look at 2008 because 2010's figures are incomplete at this point and frankly something is funky on Box Office Mojo with the 2009 numbers. If you look at their listing of top movies in each country, the top movie doesn't line up with the actual figures if you drill down into each country. For example, Box Office Mojo lists...

Box office success of the film Benvenuti al Sud suggests Italians can overcome Northern League-style separatist prejudice

It is shamelessly unoriginal. None of the actors is a front-rank star. And it was the director's first solo feature movie.

Yet a new Italian comedy, Benvenuti al Sud (Welcome to the South), has achieved box office success by getting Italians to laugh at one of their most deeply held convictions: that an unbridgeable divide separates the rich north of their country from the poor south.

Released on 1 October, Benvenuti al Sud grossed €3.8 million (£3.3m) in its first weekend, pushing the Us sci-fi blockbuster Inception into second place at the box office. Cinema managers reported the sale of tickets per screen was at levels usually only seen at Christmas.

The film is an acknowledged remake of a French movie, Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, which told the story of a southern postal employee unhappily transferred to the north.

The 53rd San Francisco International Festival opened late last week with Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs -- a film that evokes an inner child's sensibility and emphasizes the more whimsical qualities that can be found in smaller doses in the French filmmaker's previous work. With colorful characters and plenty of verve, the visually alluring comedy tells the tale of a man who, after falling victim to a random gun shot, plots his revenge with his friends (a group of society's rejects) who take pleasure in dismantling two rival weapon manufacturers. A treasure full of wonders, this original "anti-war" remark sees Jeunet use comedian Dany Boon (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) in a comedy of manners mode that merits a comparison to one of cinema's early silver-screen legend. Sfiff runs until the 6th of May. Yama Rahimi: In this film you manage to merge successfully the whimsical and fantastical with a political message.

At the beginning when we have the concept of the story. Once we know we have a revenge story, we open the book of details and see what we can use. For example the story of the sugar and coffee or the mine in the football field which I had in mind for 20 years. I have boxes of ideas and details like that. It's pre-occupation to have a rich movie. For some people it's too much and too many details. - The 53rd San Francisco International Festival opened late last week with Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs -- a film that evokes an inner child's sensibility and emphasizes the more whimsical qualities that can be found in smaller doses in the French filmmaker's previous work. With colorful characters and plenty of verve, the visually alluring comedy tells the tale of a man who, after falling...

I was so excited at seeing the SXSW line up last night that I completely forgot to post it and started searching the interwebs for cool content to go with it. Oops. Yes, I wish I was there but alas, it wasn’t mean to be (though don’t despair. We’ll be bringing you wicked awesome coverage).

But enough rambling, you want to know what’s all playing. Well, for a start there’s the much anticipated McGruber (trailer), the Duplass’ semi-mainstream comedy Cyrus, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs (trailer, review), Daniel Stamm’s horror flick Cotton and that’s on top of the previously announced titles which include Electra Luxx (Carla Gugino as a pregnant porn star? Bring. It. On.) and Kick-Ass (trailer). That’s already a great line-up but dear me, some of the other titles are pretty awesome too.

There’s Clay Liford scifi drama Earthling (trailer...

The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival unveiled its feature film program Wednesday night, highlighted by the world premieres of action spoof "MacGruber" and "Mr. Nice," a real-life tale of an infamous British drug smuggler starring Rhys Ifans.

Features from the Duplass brothers ("Cyrus"), Steven Soderbergh ("And Everything Is Going Fine"), Michel Gondry ("The Thorn in the Heart") and Tim Blake Nelson ("Leaves of Grass") also have spots on the program.

The March 12-20 festival will showcase 119 features and 55 world premieres, including pervasively announced opening-night film "Kick-Ass." Selections were chosen from 1,572 submissions (1,206 U.S., 366 international).

"We want discovery," said conference and fest producer Janet Pierson, now in her second year. "We want a real range of films across the board."

Eight narrative and eight documentary features comprise the main competition categories.

The narrative selections are "Brotherhood," directed by Will Canon; "Dance With the One" (Mike Dolan); "Earthling" (Clay Liford...

The 2010 SXSW Film Festival and Conference has announced its initial slate of titles. The list is rife with hot world premieres (Kick-Ass), films fresh from Sundance (The Runaways, Cyrus), hot titles from the 2009 editions of Tiff and Cannes that haven't had much U.S. play (Enter the Void, Dogtooth, Trash Humpers), interesting documentaries (Lemmy, The People v. George Lucas) and much, much more. Simon Rumley's Red, White & Blue, which has received much praise on Twitch based on its Iffr screenings, will have its North American premiere.

Midnight programming courtesy of Fantastic Fest is also back with titles like Higanjima, Monsters, Serbian Film, Outcast, and a yet to be announced special film. Keep eye out for SXSW coverage at Twitch, but for now, pursue the massive list below (descriptions courtesy of SXSW).

Headliners

Big names, big talent:  Headliners bring star power to SXSW, featuring red carpet premieres and gala film...

Drawing on one of France's most popular screen stars, the incorrigible Dany Boon from the comedy mega hit Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, as well as a cast of some of the country's best-known actors, including André Dussollier, Nicolas Marié, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Julie Ferrier, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, City Of Lost Children, e Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) returns with his latest film Micmacs a satire on the world arms trade. Judging by the trailer, this has got all the qualities audiences have come to love in Jeunet's previous films, a fantastical comedy from a world class director that is sure to not disappoint. Is it better to live with a bullet lodged in your brain, even if it means you might drop dead any time or would you rather have the bullet taken out and live the rest of your life as a vegetable? Are zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes?...

• Sony Pictures Classics will officially cram one more title at the Toronto Film Festival - and what a pick up it is. Spc has picked up the U.S. and Latin American rights to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's fantasy comedy - which receives its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on the 15th. The film stars Dany Boon, whose Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis catapulted him at the top of the French box office - so the casting of the actor makes this another sure fire hit at the box office, let me specify, the French box office.  Co-written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, Micmacs tells the tale of "a video store clerk with a bullet lodged in his brain. Knowing he could drop dead at any time, he bands together with an odd collection of outsiders - a mechanical genius, a con man and a contortionist among them -

...

Paris -- French producer and distributor Pathe posted a 26.4% increase in annual earnings during 2008 hitting 770 million euros ($969.4 million), the group said Monday.

Boxoffice revenue grew 14% to 58 million euros ($73 million), thanks mostly to Dany Boon’s boxoffice phenomenon “Welcome to the Sticks” which sold more than 20 million tickets in Gaul alone. The movie has so far been a hot ticket abroad as well and a remake is in the works stateside to be produced by Will Smith.

Pathe is the biggest distributor in France, via Europalace, its exhibition subsidiary with Gaumont that owns 834 screens. “These results will allow us to work on long-term projects. I’m already thinking about our 2010 and 2011 releases, instead of focusing on the trimestrial results,” Jerome Seydoux, head of Pathe, told Gallic newspaper Le Figaro.

Seydoux, a co-producer of “Slumdog Millionaire,” put up more than half the budget of the film ($8.5 million out of a total budget...

I don't believe I have ever reported the nominees for the International Film Music Critics Association before, but in the spirit of covering more award season news than is probably necessary I figured, "What the hell?" The nominees listed below make up the fifth annual International Film Music Critics Association Awards for Excellence with Wall-e receiving the most nominations including Film Score of the Year, Best Score for an Animated Film, Best Film Composition (for "Define Dancing") and Composer of the Year for Thomas Newman. The other big nominee is Danny Elfman who received the most individual nominations this year with seven: Composer of the Year; Film Score of the Year and Best Documentary Score for Standard Operating Procedure; Best Drama Score for Milk; Best Action/Adventure Score and Best Individual Cue for Wanted ("Success Montage"); and Best Fantasy/Science Fiction Score for Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The International...