The back-to-back release of Chinese Puzzle and Beauty and the Beast in Russia provide an opportunity for Cédric Klapisch and Christophe Gans to meet with Russian audiences.
Chinese Puzzle, distributed by Cinema Prestige, will open the Festival of French-Language Cinema on March 20, 2014, in Moscow. The film's director Cédric Klapisch will be in attendance to meet with audiences and answer questions from the media. Earlier the same day, he will meet with students at the renowned VGIK Film School (where he led a master class a number of years ago). He will then jet off on March 21 to St Petersburg to take part in another premiere screening of his film. Chinese Puzzle is scheduled to hit Russian screens on April 3, with around 300 prints released.
Coincidentally, director Christophe Gans and actress Myriam Charleins will touch down in Moscow on March 22 to present Beauty and the Beast, which is distributed in Russia by West Video. It will be launched on March 27 with just under 1,000 prints–a feat that no other majority French production has achieved since Perestroika! These two events will bring an end to the first quarter of 2014, which has seen an abundance of new French films on Russian screens, with a total of 16 titles released up to the beginning of April.
