PARIS — As film critics hunker down in Cannes for the next week and a half to assess the state of cinematic art, millions of people across Europe will buy tickets to Hollywood blockbusters like “Iron Man 2” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”

Europeans flocking to the cinema are contributing to a global boom in box-office receipts and generating a rare bit of good news for the troubled media industry. But American movie studios are enjoying most of the benefit.

The American export boom is being fueled by movies with three-dimensional effects, including “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Avatar,” the biggest-grossing film of all time. European moviemakers were initially skeptical about the technology, reckoning that the novelty would wear off — and, perhaps, that Gérard Depardieu in two dimensions was already more than enough.

“European producers have been a lot slower to grasp the initiative,” said Charlotte Jones, analyst at Screen Digest, a research firm in London.

As a result, locally produced films lost ground at the European box office last year, falling to 26.7 percent of ticket sales from 28.2 percent in 2008, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory in Strasbourg. Analysts say the European films’ share has deteriorated further this year, especially in France, the biggest movie producer in Europe and usually a redoubt of strength for domestic productions.

The setback followed a good run for European filmmakers, during which they produced movies with ever broader audience appeal. France led the way, with films like “Amélie” in 2001, and European success continued through 2008 with “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis,” also from France, and “Slumdog Millionaire,” from Britain.

The recent reversal of fortunes is reviving worries about the commercial dominance of Hollywood among European film producers and cultural authorities.

“Given the number of American films in 3-D that have appeared, it is very important that French production gets going,” said Stéphanie Gavardin, a spokeswoman for the Centre National du Cinéma in France.

The agency, which coordinates public financing for the French movie business, has approved subsidies totaling €1.3 million, or $1.7 million, to about 20 3-D film projects, she said. None of these films has reached theaters yet, but a number are expected to do so next year.

Elsewhere in Europe, 3-D films are starting to emerge. In what is being billed as the first release of a European-made live action 3-D film, “StreetDance 3D,” a British movie featuring dance troupes that made their names via television talent contests, is set to appear in cinemas this month.

Perhaps the highest-profile European 3-D project is a French-German coproduction, “Resident Evil: Afterlife.” The film, based on a video game series and starring Milla Jovovich, is set for release in September.

Even with public subsidies, a fixture of filmmaking across Europe, the high cost of making 3-D movies remains a problem for European producers, which operate on budgets that are only a small fraction of a typical Hollywood outlay. Shooting live action in 3-D generally costs about 25 percent to 30 percent more than conventional filming, analysts say, though the premium may be even higher for low-budget productions.

Some people in the movie industry argue that it makes little sense for European producers to compete with Hollywood in the production of technology-driven, blockbuster-style films.

“We can’t,” said Vincent Grimond, chief executive of Wild Bunch, a film distributor based in Paris. “There is only one worldwide movie industry, and that is Hollywood. The only thing we can do is be lucky and come out with a ‘Slumdog’ from time to time.”

European cinema owners, however, are eager to see more 3-D movies on their screens. Not only do these films draw in viewers eager for something new, but they enable theaters to charge a premium. So they are investing heavily in the special digital screens needed to show 3-D effects.

According to the audiovisual observatory, the number of digital screens in Europe tripled last year, to more than 4,600. That is about 13 percent of overall movie screens in the region.

French cinema owners have been leading the way. As “Avatar” was raking it in at the box office this winter, French theater operators like MK2, UGC and Gaumont Pathé accelerated plans to digitize their networks of screens across France and other European countries.

Several countries, including France, Germany and Italy, have announced plans to use public funds to subsidize the installation of digital screens in smaller cinemas, whose owners say they cannot afford the investment and fear that they will otherwise be stuck showing two-dimensional art house films to dwindling audiences.

While some European producers fear that digitization will hasten a shift in audience tastes, away from the kinds of films that Europe does best, the situation may not be as dire as the market share numbers suggest.

While U.S. blockbusters made big gains at the European box office last year, European films also managed to eke out small increases, despite a falling market share, because more people went to the movies. Overall box-office receipts rose 12 percent in the 27 European Union countries last year, according to the audiovisual observatory, with ticket sales up 6 percent.

“I’m not sure the popularity of ‘Avatar’ means there is any less interest in European film,” said Renate Rose, managing director of European Film Promotion, an organization based in Hamburg that works to raise the profile of European movies in international markets.

More information can be found at http://eurocinema.com/tvprogramming.php?film_id=107&b=55

FOREVER
From Italy with English subtitles, PER SEMPRE (FOREVER); starring Giancarlo Giannini (CASINO ROYALE, MAN ON FIRE) Francesca Neri (COLLATERAL DAMAGE) and Emilio Solfrizzi. Giovanni’s (Giannini) life is full of professional success and extramarital conquests. His whole life is upset by the sudden intrusion of Sara (Neri), a beautiful yet unscrupulous woman who – for fun and revenge – captures men and is soon bored with them. Passionate love pushes Giovanni to abandon his family, but Sara soon decides to leave him. He falls severely ill with what his doctor’s call “scratch the soul”. Giovanni’s analyst Dr. Doddoli (Solfrizzi) wants to know what causes this and tracks it back to Sara.

Lullaby
This again is the story of passionate love that too can alter a life, no dialogue just a heartwarming story of “forever” love.

THE LARK FARM
Armenians around the world are commemorating the 95th anniversary of what has become known as the Armenian Holocaust. From Italy with English subtitles, THE LARK FARM with a truly all-star international cast led by Paz Vega (SPANGLISH, SEX AND LUCIA), Moritz Bleibtreu (RUN LOLA RUN, MUNICH),Tcheky Karyo (THE PATRIOT, GOLDENEYE), directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. THE LARK FARM is the first high-profile film to deal with the Armenian genocide. More than a million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed between 1915 and 1917. The fact that the genocide is still such a politically charged question for Turkey has kept it off Hollywood development lists, despite what many believe was a precursor to the Jewish Holocaust during WWII.
Champ d’Honneur
From France and England, during WWI an office set on inspiring his soldiers to gain that final 100 yards decides to use a football for that inspiration. Some might say it worked, but at what cost.
Teens
KICK N RUSH
Danish with English subtitles, A riveting coming-of-age film from celebrated Danish filmmaker Aage Rais-Nordentoft. Jakob, Bo, and Mikkel share a passion for soccer, girls, and petty vandalism. As Jakob embarks on a tentative new romance with a girl Mikkel has been secretly admiring, Bo’s moves on the field draw the attention of professional soccer scouts. Each, in their own way, discovers that life is full of sudden joys and lasting pain, and that nothing ever stays the same. Compared to AMERICAN PIE and BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM. With inspired writing and an exuberant cast, this stylized teenage drama makes a clean break from the pack.
ALEX’S PARTY
A young thief, Christie, learns that some things in life are priceless in the course of watching a video she and her friends have stolen as part of a robbery they committed one life-altering night.

SLIM SUSIE
Swedish w/English subtitles. Director ULF MALMROS SMALA SUSSIE (SLIM SUSIE) stars TUVA NOVOTNY who has been seen recently in POSSESSION with Sarah Michelle Geller and the ROLLING STONES bio pic STONED, she plays SUSIE and JONAS REMEILKA is her brother Erik. He has to return to the small village where he and Sussie grew up, Susie’s disappeared. This is not your typical Swedish sex, drugs, and crime comedy.
Bisbille
French w/English subtitles. It is an early film from director Roch Stephanik and stars Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi who is in “Munich” and will be seen with Russell Crowe in the coming “A Good Year”. This short film won the 1988 Cannes Film Festival “Perpectives du Cinema” award. Tedeschi also wrote, directed and starred in 2003’s “It is Easier for a Camel” for which she won the Tribeca Film Festival award for Best Actress.

I LOVE YOU TOO
Netherlands with English subtitles. This erotic thriller is the story of a young writer vacationing in France, he and a friend are there to explore literature and sex. Always in the background of this joyful trip is the heartbreaking story about the fatal love of Erik for the mysterious Reza. Erik has just turned in the manuscript for his novel. It is the story about his first love Reza who exploded into his life and took it over using sex as her weapon He tells the story to the young medical student, Silke, he has just met and we see the story unfold in flashback
Fingerprints
We watch as a meticulous crime scene investigator goes about his gruesome task, looking for clues to what appears to be a crime. There is no dialogue but as he continues the story of what happened begins to become apparent.
Relationships
DYING IN ATHENS
A middle-aged philandering university professor, Andreas (Spyros Papadopoulos), has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and he’s surprised by the response of the multiple women in his life, in award-winning writer/director Nikos Panayotopoulos’ upbeat Greek tragedy, comedy and yes, musical, DYING IN ATHENS. Andreas is married to Anna (Maria Nafpliotou), but divides most of his time between a steamy student, Lia (Vicky Papadopoulou) and his smoldering mistress Camille (Maria Solomou). When he receives his grim diagnosis, he is determined to come clean to wife, who has been aware of Camille, but is shocked to hear about the much younger student. Now this could be a story or revenge, resentment and abandonment but it is coming from Greece and it’s a musical.
NOM DIT
ESCAPE
THE SANDMAN
From Spain with English subtitles, starring Spanish heartthrob Hugo Silva and Goya Award winning actress Maria Valverde. It is the 60’s and Spain is still a dictatorship. Young Mateo is imprisoned in a psychiatric institution out in the provinces. It’s clear this is more prison than hospital. A love develops between Mateo and another inmate Lola who has been institutionalized after years of sexual abuse. Together they push the boundaries of the institution that houses them; will they bend, break or escape?

LUCKY
LUCKY, starring a car and filmmaker/stunt man Nash Edgerton…will he escape and will it all be worth it. You judge how lucky is this guy?

An NBC news crew followed the group of former East Berliners digging a tunnel from west to east to rescue their families and friends. This true event is depicted in the film DER TUNNEL (THE TUNNEL) now playing on Eurocinema on Demand. The movie, which is an inch by inch depiction of the planning and digging of the tunnel. The heroes of the film, besides the technical issues they had to deal with were constantly hounded by “who can we trust” since during this period the notorious East German Stasi (secret police) had recruited many to spy and get information on escape attempts.

The film has a long list of German favorites, Sebastien Koch (LIVES OF OTHERS, BLACK BOOK) Heino Ferch (DOWNFALL) Alexandra Maria Lara (DOWNFALL, THE READER) and Nicolette Krebitz. The trailer for the movie is available: http://www.eurocinema.com/index.php?film_id=103

If you want to learn more about the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-uniting of not only a country but families, friends and an entire society, then you should watch this movie.

Eurocinema works with film distributors both in Europe and the leading distributors in the US of foreign films to find them. We have criteria we use based on each individual film. We look for award winning films, films that have proven themselves at the many film festivals around the world. A film like LA SCONOSCIUTO (THE UNKNOWN WOMAN) fits that bill having won 18 film awards and it was the Italian entry to the Academy Awards.

We look for films that had a big box office either in their native country or on the continent but for some reason had no or limited release in North America. A film like LE COUER DES HOMMES 2 and ALLES IS LIEFDE (LOVE IS ALL) are films that fit that bill, even though they had big stars, Carice Van Houten (BLACK BOOK, VALKYRIE) and in the case of LE COUER DES HOMMES 2 Gerard Darmon (THE GOOD THIEF). Sometimes there is a limited number of screens available for a theatrical release or the distributor decides to wait for a DVD release bypassing theatres. We look for films with stars that are familiar to a US audience or to a specific audience.

A film like 48 HEURES PAR JOUR with a star like Victoria Abril with face and name recognition in the US or THE EDGE OF LOVE with Kiera Knightley and Sienna Miller or INNOCENCE with Oscar winner Marion Cotillard or PER SEMPRE with Giancarlo Giannini (CASINO ROYALE, MAN ON FIRE). Then there is THE LARK FARM with Paz Vega (SPANGLISH, TEN ITEMS OR LESS), LE PETIT LIEUTENANT with Nathalie Baye (CATCH ME IF YOU CAN), all movies with stars a North American audience either recognizes their name or face.

We also look to films that have not received a wide theatrical release because of controversy. THE LARK FARM deals with the Armenian genocide or MAYBE GOD IS ILL a documentary from Italy dealing with the many troubles on the continent of Africa, done is a unique way mixing singers and storytellers. I LOVE YOU TOO a beautifully done film from Denmark but it is categorized as erotic so some theatrical distributors shy away from this kind of film.

We have had to look occasionally outside of Europe for titles. For example, ALICE’S HOUSE and CORPO, both award winning films from Brazil. We have done this because we believe some of the best Portuguese language films today are coming from Brazil.

Then there are some films that are just timely. THE TUNNEL fills that bill, it does have big stars, Sebastien Koch (LIVES OF OTHERS) Heino Ferch (DOWNFALL), Alexandra Maria Lara (DOWNFALL, THE READER) winner of 9 film awards. The film though was selected because of the timeliness being the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

So there you are, a look into how films are selected for Eurocinema on Demand. If you have any suggestions please let us know. Visit us at www.eurocinema.com

With: Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino, Jose Luis Gioia.

By JONATHAN HOLLAND
Source: http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_review&reviewid=VE1117941041&categoryid=2863
A deeply rewarding throwback to the unself-conscious days when cinema still strove to be magical, “The Secrets in their Eyes” is simply mesmerizing. While it packs two generation-spanning love stories, a noirish thriller, some delicious comedy, a pointed political critique and much food for thought into more than two hours’ compelling, grown-up entertainment, the film is still more than the sum of its parts. Repping a change of direction for Juan Jose Campanella, whose “The Son of the Bride” also starred Ricardo Darin, this is an altogether darker, more complex piece of work, as well as Campanella’s finest film.

In Argentina, the mid-August release has met with unusual critical and commercial acclaim; “Eyes” is likely to shine similarly in a range of offshore territories.

Recently retired Benjamin (Darin), a former criminal-court employee, has decided to write a novel based on a rape and murder that occurred 20 years ago — a crime he believes has never been solved. He shares his intentions with judge Irene (Soledad Villamil), for whom he has long carried a secret torch and who — for reasons which soon become clear — is unsure about the idea.

Flashbacks set just before the late ’70s arrival of the military junta show an Argentina already in the grip of judicial corruption. (Pic is vague about specifics, but supplies enough political background for auds to make the necessary connections.) The dead woman was the young wife of Morales (Pablo Rago); the two immigrant workers arrested for the crime have clearly been beaten into confessing.

Roused to action, and aided by his drunken barfly colleague Sandoval (Argentinean comedian Guillermo Francella), Benjamin sets about identifying the real perp, their clumsiness generating some wonderful comic business along the way.

It’s typical of the pic’s striking fusion of thriller and romance that Benjamin is alerted to the possibility that Gomez (Javier Godino) might be the killer by photographs in which Gomez is staring at the victim. “Eyes talk,” one character says, and indeed, eyes function beautifully in the film as both vehicles of passion and instruments of observation.

Tracking down Godino is fraught with difficulties. Benjamin becomes determined to have the case formally reopened, and his struggles to do so rep a barbed attack on the way power employs bureaucracy to obfuscate the path to justice. The pic’s second half slows to explore the present consequences of these goings-on.

Aided by helmer’s fluid editing, “Secret” shuttles smoothly between the busy past and a present replete with satisfyingly extended takes, such as when Benjamin and Irene flirtatiously debate the transforming power of memory, a key theme in terms of 20th-century Argentinian history. Pacing here is expertly judged, moving between suspenseful scenes and delicate, pin-drop dialogue, and the outstanding thesps generate real chemistry by taking all the time they need — which is never a second too long.

Powerfully understated, Darin explores every psychological shade of a moral man who, having been beaten down by the system, now seeks the fulfillment life has denied him; richness of the perf, which encompasses both younger and older versions, suggests that we are witnessing the arc of an entire life. Villamil plays the beautiful, statuesque Irene as insecure beneath her veneer of professional power, while Francella, though responsible for many of the laughs, movingly brings out the loneliness beneath the comedy. Rago’s Morales is somewhat limited by his role as the distraught victim, but is allowed to blossom in a hauntingly intense scene later on.

Visually, the film is straightforward, with repeated tight close-ups of faces, per title, providing the only stylistic idiosyncrasies (these shots also reveal the fine makeup work in aging the characters). But room is found for one memorable tour-de-force sequence set in a packed soccer stadium, the camera swinging and swooping as it goes in search of a single figure among the thousands.

Federico Jusid’s score aptly tends toward the intimate and lyrical, though with occasional bursts of the stately. Print screened for review includes one scene of full-frontal nudity.

Camera (color, widescreen), Felix Monti; music, Federico Jusid; art director, Marcelo Pont Verges; sound (Dolby), Jose L. Diaz Ouzande. Reviewed at Alta Films screening room, Madrid, Sept. 2, 2009. (In Toronto Film Festival — Special Presentations.) Running time: 127 MIN.

VISIT: www.eurocinema.com

Please click here to discover the many fine talents that should be recognized for their work.

Of course there are the classic Italian beauties, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale…but believe me when I tell you there are more, many more.

Monica Bellucci, makes all the “beautiful women’s” lists worldwide and she can act, being seen by Eurocinema audiences in KAPUTT MUNDI, she put a new meaning into lover’s revenge. She has been in French films like IRREVERSIBLE and American audiences enjoyed her in MATRIX, TEARS OF THE SUN and more.

Maria Grazia Cucinotta she burst on to everyone’s radar in IL POSTINO and has stayed there ever since with appearances in Bond movies THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and won an American Best Actress award for A BROOKLYN STATE OF MIND.

Asia Argento daughter of noted Italian horror film director Dario Argento, in fact she has been seen on Eurocinema in one of his films SINDROME STENDHAL opposite Thomas Kretschmer. She has been in numerous American and British movies as well, from XXX to MARIE ANTOINETTE to PARIS JE T’AIME.

Francesca Neri, besides being beautiful she is an accomplished actress having won 3 Best Actress awards for LIVE FLESH, GIOVANNA’S FATHER and PENSAVO FOSSE INVECA ERA UN CALESSE. She has also appeared in a few American films HANNIBAL, COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

Manuela Arcuri in 2008 she was #9 on the E!’s list of the 100 sexiest women in the world just behind Penelope Cruz. She made her mark in acting for her role in the Spanish film MAD LOVE and she is best known in Italy for her starring role in the TV series CARBINIERI.

Maria Mazza though she has not done many movies any Italian, especially Italian men, will know her name, or picture immediately from her numerous TV appearances. Her 2 films, TI LASCIO PERCHE TI AMO TROPPO and UN AMORE PERFETTO, have been well received in Italy and look for her to break in the US.

Ana Catarina Morariu, you know everyone noticed when she walked in on Bruce Willis’ arm in OCEAN’S TWELVE, and she has been attracting attention ever since. We at Eurocinema sure noticed when she co-starred in MY BEST ENEMY on Eurocinema.