Sony Pictures Classics widened Jacques Rivette's Va Savoir from three to seven prints last weekend, scoring $67,268 for a fine $9,610 screen average. The success of that film, added to First Look's hit Italian release Bread And Tulips and Menemsha's long-running Philippine American hit The Debut ($64,670 on just six screens over the weekend), continue the bumper year for foreign language films.

Eleven films not in the English language have already grossed over $1m in the North American market this year, and that's even before Miramax has opened Amelie, the French juggernaut which is showing all the signs of another box office phenomenon a la Crouching Tiger, on Nov 2. Amelie has already taken $1.1m in Quebec through TVA International, which has French-language rights, and Alliance Atlantis, which has English-language rights.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM TOP TEN YEAR TO DATE

Film (Country) Director US distributor Total to date
1 The Closet (France) Miramax/Christal Films* $6.3m
2 Amores Perros (Mexico) Lions Gate Films $5.4m
3 With A Friend Like Harry (France) Miramax $3.8m
4 The Widow Of St Pierre (France) Lions Gate Films $3.1m
5 Bread And Tulips (Italy) First Look $2.81m
6 In The Mood For Love (Hong Kong/France) USA Films $2.74m
7 Himalaya (France/Nepal) Kino $2.12
8 Under The Sand (France) Winstar $1.4m
9 The Road Home (China) Sony Pictures Classics $1.26m
10 Divided We Fall (Czech Republic) Sony Pictures Classics $1.13m
* Christal is the Canadian distributor on The Closet

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS TO COME 2001

Oct 19 Bangkok Dangerous (First Look)
Nov 2 Amelie (Miramax)
Nov 23 The Devil's Backbone (Sony Classics) The Way We Laughed (New Yorker)
Nov 30 Behind The Sun (Miramax)
Dec 7 No Man's Land (UA)
Dec 28 Dark Blue World (Sony Classics)