Last weekend saw both a host of new European openings and a return to the top in Poland for this year's Cannes' Palme D'Or winner The Pianist. The Roman Polanski film launched in France and Belgium on Sept 25 and Switzerland on Sept 26 to strong scores.

In France the film achieved second place in the box office chart, behind Hollywood opener The Bourne Identity, in its first week on release, selling 379,804 admissions (equivalent to $1.97m) from 440 screens. The World War II drama sold 50,392 tickets on its first day alone for Bac Distribution.

In Belgium it landed fourth place with $103,890 (Euros 106,487) from 32 screens for distributor Cineart.

Opening on just 14 screens in Switzerland's French-speaking region, The Pianist took eighth place with a resounding $56,786 (SFR 85,406) for a screen average of $4,056. Handled by local distributor Frenetic, it launches in the German-speaking region on Oct 10.

Starring Adrien Brody as the eponymous pianist the film continues to play well in Polanski's homeland, having returned to the top of the Polish chart in its fourth week after a one week hiatus when Minority Report stepped in. With a total gross of $2.03m (ZLO8.4m) from 642,000 admissions the film looks set to do strong business for distributor Syrena for some time to come.

The Pianist opens in Germany for Tobis StudioCanal on Oct 24 and has a limited launch in New York and L.A. on Dec 27 before expanding across the US in January