While the selection of the 8th Rendez-vous – Nuovo cinema francese (a festival jointly organized by the Institut Français in Rome and UniFrance) will be revealed Monday 26 March in Rome, a French production is currently enjoying a record release in Italy and has become 2018's most successful French title to date in the country.
Released in only 3 foreign territories to date, Belle and Sebastian, Friends for Life, (produced by Radar films andt Epithète Films, in coproduction with Gaumont) has crossed the 500,000 admissions threshold abroad!
Although it has attracted 64,000 Belgian spectators (€382,000 in box office revenues) and 20,000 French-speaking Swiss (€221,500 in box office revenues), it is in Italy that the film has recorded its best performance. During the week of its release, it had to compete with several Oscar-nominated titles, but was the only family-oriented film among them. Belle et Sébastien 3 launched in 363 theaters, attracting 185,500 spectators (€1.17 million in box office revenues) after only 7 days on screen, a result that shot the film up to 6th position in the local top ten rankings.
During its second week, the number of screens were increased (460 screens) and the film remained in the local top ten, with an accumulated total of 430,000 spectators (€2.67 million in box office revenues), making it the greatest French success of 2018 in Italy. It has already overtaken the second part of the trilogy (2015 – 411,000 admissions and €2.36 million in box office revenues), whereas the first crossed the million-ticket-sales mark (2014 – 1.17 million and €7.07 million in box office revenues). The three films are distributed in Italy by Notorious Pictures, with Gaumont handling international sales.
Belle and Sebastian, Friends for Life's career is however just beginning: it will soon release in Germany (Ascot-Elite Entertainment), Poland (Monolith Films), Russia, and Ukraine (Pioner). Premieres in Australia and New Zealand (Icon Film Distribution) will soon follow during the The Alliance Française French Film Festival.
