ScreenDaily takes a look at the local and independent openings in key markets this week.

UK:

Optimum Releasing have French historical drama The Army Of Crime out on a limited release from October 2. Set in Paris during the Nazi occupation in the Second World War, Robert Guédiguian’s film follows a multi-cultural band of Resistance fighters.

Agnès Varda’s autobiographical work The Beaches Of Agnès also gets a release, through arthouse distributor Artificial Eye.

Germany:

Argentinian film-maker Adrian Biniez’s feature debut Gigante, which received its premiere at the Berlinale last February and won prizes including Best First Feature Film and a share of the Alred Bauer Prize for Particular Innovation, has been released by Neue Visionen nationwide on 55 screens.

Polyband is opening the documentary Turtle - The Incredible Journey in 75 German towns and cities.

Filmlichter is distributing German-Isarreli documentary Menachem And Fred which had its premiere at the Citydome in Sinsheim on September 30. The film’s makers and protagonists also appeared at screenings in Heidelberg, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Ofra Tevet and Ronit Kertsner’s film won the Cinema For Peace Award for “most inspirational movie of the year” 2008.

Spain:

Filmax release the much anticipated horror sequel [Rec] 2 on 356 screens across Spain, following its world premiere at the Venice film festival. With, Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza return to directing duties, the film carries on where the previous one left off with a Swat team and a medical officer entering the building where infected humans have taken over. The original took an impressive $12m at the Spanish box office back in 2007and 2008.

US director Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits Of Control was shot in Spain with an international cast that includes leading Spanish actors such as Luis Tosar and Oscar Jaenada.  Universal will be hoping these factors appeal to the Spanish audience when the film is released this weekend. Ivory Coast-born actor Isaach De Bankole plays a mysterious loner looking to commit a crime with the help of several contacts along the way, including characters played by the likes of Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal. Jarmusch’s previous film Broken Flowers took an impressive $33m outside the US.

Spanish actors Aitor Mazo and Patxo Telleria managed the ultimate coup by getting a US studio, in this case Paramount, to release their first feature as directors. The Cloud Painting Machine is about a young Basque painter whose art is suppressed by the Franco government in the 1970s, and premiered last week at the San Sebastian festival where it received a positive response.