Swiss comedy Ernstfall In Havanna claimed the top spot in its home country with a strong four-day opening (March 14-17) of $292,603 (SFr 484,551). Playing on 31 screens in Switzerland's German-speaking region the film beat several high profile Hollywood titles including A Beautiful Mind at number two in its third week ($253,663), Monsters, Inc. at three ($245,721) in its seventh week and Spy Game at four - which also opened in the German region this week on 43 screens to take $209,248 (It previously opened in the French-speaking region of the country in January).

The last time a local production made the Swiss chart's top five was Das Fahnlein Der Sieben Aufrechten (The Rebel) which opened at number five with $91,771 (SFr 151,972) on the same weekend last year (March 15-18).

Ernstfall In Havanna, directed by Sabine Boss, stars popular local TV satirist Viktor Giacobbo (who also co-wrote with Boss) as a congenial Swiss embassy official who accompanies a US Senator on his mission to Cuba and after a series of blunders nearly causes another Cuban crisis.

The film was produced by Vega Film whose distribution arm Vega Distribution handled the release. World sales are through Vega. The film is in Swiss-German, English and Spanish.

Vega had a big success in 2000 with Markus Imboden's Komiker which was seen by 157,528 people and became Switzerland's 13th most successful film of all time.