Traditionally, summer is the time when a handful of American blockbusters dominate cinema programmes (with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Miami Vice doing the honours this year). Nevertheless, a large number of distributors try to buck this trend by releasing films which find their audiences largely through word-of-mouth.

This summer's crop included several films premiered in Cannes in May.
The first was Changement d’adresse (Directors' Fortnight). This comedy, directed by Emmanuel Mouret, had a 79-screen release on 21 June and, to date, has managed to draw 126.400 admissions (1.600 per print). The film hits Belgian theatres in the coming days; releases are also planned in a number of other countries.
The Right of the Weakest (La Raison du plus faible, Competition) – Lucas Belvaux' gripping milieu thriller whose taut direction recalls US genre classics – opened on 19 July on 150 screens and has already done more than 171.000 admissions. It too opens shortly in Belgium.
9 August saw the release of The Page Turner (La Tourneuse de Pages, Un Certain Regard) on 200 screens, with a parallel outing in Belgium. For the film's second week, the number of screens was increased considerably, and it is already approaching 600.000 admissions. Audiences in the Netherlands, the UK and Finland will get their chance to see the film from November.
More recently, Taxidermia (Un Certain Regard), the shocker by Hungarian director György Palfi, opened in about twenty screens and made a small-scale splash by attracting 17.000 filmgoers in just two weeks.
Success on a rather different scale was only to be expected from this year's Palme d'Or winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley by Ken Loach. After a 250-screen opening, it drew 475.000 admissions in the space of two weeks. Already one of the director's best-performing films in Ireland, the film looks set to have a long-running international career, with releases scheduled in a long list of countries.
Bruno Dumont's latest film has been doing well, with 32.300 admissions in its first week. Flanders – awarded the Grand Prize by the Jury in Cannes – is showing on 75 screens.
Last week's releases included How I Celebrated the End of the World, the wonderful debut feature by Romanian director Catalin Mitulescu which garnered the Best Actress award in the Cannes sidebar Un Certain Regard for Dorotheea Petre. Though not a flop, it performed more slowly than expected, with only 8.300 admissions in one week for 30 screens. It is continuing showing on 27 screens, most of them members of the Europa Cinemas network.

But these weren't the only successes; summer smiled on a good number of other European productions this year.
After being presented to exhibitors at the last network Conference in November 2005, A Cock and Bull Story took a long time finally to reach screens. Given a 63-screen outing on 5 July, Michael Winterbottom's comedy performed very well, with more than 100.000 admissions. Released at the same time was Manuale d’amore by Giovanni Veronesi, which also managed a healthy 65.000 admissions on 48 screens. This too was a good late showing from a film which was originally released in Italy in March… 2005!
But the real success of the summer – albeit on a much more modest scale – was the Pusher trilogy, which was screened by one sole multiplex, the UGC Ciné-Cité les Halles in Paris. The three films by Nicolas Winding Refn attracted 10.691 filmgoers, an average of 3.564 per print.
Two re-releases also did impressively well on the repertory circuit. The Passenger (Professione:reporter, by Michelangelo Antonioni) drew 18.370 admissions on 5 screens and a 4-screen outing for Violent Summer (Estate violenta, by Valerio Zurlini) managed 15.000 admissions.

Finally, this brief overview would not be complete without a mention for two French films which proved hits in their respective fields. Them (Ils), a horror by directors David Moreau et Xavier Palud, managed to set a new benchmark as a genre film welcomed by aficionados and critics alike, doing 251.000 admissions on 150 screens. Catering for a more art house audience, the travel essay Armenia (Le Voyage en Arménie) by Robert Guédiguian reached 246.000 admissions. After an original 174-screen release on 28 June, the film was still showing in 49 cinemas on 6 September!

Sources: CBO

Jean-Baptiste Selliez