UK braces 44 Inch Chest, Germany embraces Friendship!

UK

UK production 44 Inch Chest is released nationwide release in its home market through Momentum Pictures. Malcolm Venville’s drama stars Ray Winstone as a jilted husband who orchestrates the kidnapping of his wife’s lover, and also features the talent of John Hurt, Ian MacShane and Tom Wilkinson.

Arthouse distributor ICA Films are giving French spy spoof OSS 117: Lost In Rio a release in their West End cinemas and key cities from January 15. Michel Hazanavicius directed the film, which stars Jean Dujardin as the titular secret agent.

Dogwoof Pictures will release enviromental documentary Crude in the West End and key cities, also from January 15. Joe Berlinger’s film examines the lawsuit against Chevron over contamination of the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Germany

Sony Pictures Releasing International will give a nationwide release for Markus Goller’s feature debut Friendship! about two East Germans travelling across the United States shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The production by Wiedemann & Berg Filmproduktion and Mr Brown Entertainment marks Sony’s return to local German production via its production arm Deutsche Columbia Pictures Filmproduktion.

Veteran filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier teams up with Reinhold Messner for the Senator Film release of Nanga Parbatabout the internationally renowned mountaineer. It traces his tragic 1970s expedition to the Himalayan mountains when his brother Günther perished after reaching the summit.

Oscar Niemeyer - Das Leben Ist Ein Hauch, Fabiano Maciel and Sacha’s portrait of the legendary architect, comes into German cinemas just four weeks after Niemeyer celebrated his 102nd birthday. The 2007 documentary is being launched by Salzgeber at cinemas in Berlin, Freiburg and Stuttgart, with other bookings coming in the following weeks at screens in Munich, Düsseldorf, Tübingen and Ludwigsburg.

Turkish filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu’s Milk (Süt), the second part of his Yusuf trilogy, is being opened by Mitosfilm at 15 locations, including five cinemas in Berlin and screens in Cologne, Heidelberg and Hamburg. The final part of the trilogy, Honey (Bal), has been invited to premiere in competition at the Berlinale next month.

Spain

David Twohy’s thriller A Perfect Getaway will be released nationwide this weekend through Sony. The film stars two couples (played by Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich, Timothy Oliphant and Kiele Sanchez) who go on a Hawaiian holiday only to discover there are psychopaths stalking  tourists on the islands. A healthy $15m in the US has been followed so far by a less impressive $5m foreign total. 

Local distributor Yedra will be showing Cherien Dabis’ immigration drama Amreeka, which picked up the Fipresci prize at Cannes last year. The film is dominated by Arabic speaking actors, led by Nisreen Faour and Melkar Muallem, who play an immigrant mother and son struggling to adapt to life in small town Illinois. Amreeka has already taken a respectable $1.2m in France.

Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon hits Spanish 39 screens through Golem. The black and white arthouse film is set in a rural pre-World War One Northern Germany. At two and half hours long, The White Ribbon is unlikely to set the local box office alight. But if it can match the $1m that Haneke’s Cache (Hidden) took in Spain it would certainly be an achievement.