Music Box Films is pleased to announce the acquisition of all US rights to Jean-François Richet’s two part gangster epic MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT and MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1, starring Vincent Cassel.

February 26, 2010

For immediate release

MUSIC BOX ACQUIRES FRENCH GANGSTER EPIC ‘MESRINE’

Chicago, IL….Music Box Films is pleased to announce the acquisition of all US rights to Jean-François Richet’s two part gangster epic MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT and MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY NO. 1, starring Vincent Cassel. This 4 hour, $50 million production, based on the autobiography of the notorious French bank robber, kidnapper and prison escape artist Jacques Mesrine, provides Cassel a career defining performance that earned him a Cesar for Best Actor in 2009.

Mesrine (1936 -1979) had the distinction of being Public Enemy No. 1 in two countries on two continents (Canada and France) and became such a political embarrassment that he was essentially assassinated by French police on the streets of Paris. Cassel so thoroughly inhabits the character – he gained and lost over 40 pounds to play the part – he manages to make a homicidal sociopath into an always charismatic and at times almost noble figure while never soft pedaling the pathology. A crack supporting cast includes the likes of Gerald Depardieu as young Mesrine’s mentor in the rackets, accomplices Mathieu Almaric and Roy Dupuis and molls Cecile de France and Ludivine Sagnier while Olivier Gourmet is his relentless police adversary.

Director and co-writer Jean-François Richet returned to France after making “Assault on Precinct 13” in the US, and took the Best Director Cesar 2009 for his efforts.

Music Box partners Edward Arentz and William Schopf negotiated the deal with Gregoire Melin, managing director of Kinology, the film’s international sales agent. The film has now sold throughout the world.

Music Box’s Schopf calls it a “French ‘Scarface’” and says that “while it evokes the great tradition of French policiers and underworld crime dramas, it is also a muscular world class action film anchored by Cassel’s towering lead performance. We know American audiences will love it.”

Grégoire Melin: “After our fantastic experience on TELL NO ONE, Music Box was the ideal partner for promoting and distributing the excellent MESRINE, where Cassel’s talent explodes”.

The films begin their US theatrical release in summer 2010.

ABOUT MUSIC BOX FILMS

Founded in 2007, Music Box Films has quickly become one the top independent distributors serving the US arthouse market. With a focus on foreign-language cinema, Music Box’s release of Guillaume Canet’s TELL NO ONE was the most popular foreign-language film of 2008. Upcoming releases in 2010 include the Swedish mega-hit THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and France’s comedy sensation OSS 117: LOST IN RIO. Music Box Films is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corporation which also owns and operates the Music Box Theatre, Chicago’s premiere venue for independent and foreign films.

Yolande Moreau has won the LA Film Critics’ award for Best Actress of 2009 for her performance in the title role of Séraphine.

LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS ANNOUNCE 2009 AWARD WINNERS

Yolande Moreau earned best actress honors in “Séraphine,” as Séraphine Louis, a devout housekeeper who was a self-taught painter. Carey Mulligan was runner-up for “An Education.”

The complete list of Award Winners:

PICTURE: “The Hurt Locker”
Runner-up: “Up in the Air”

DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Runner-up: Michael Haneke, “The White Ribbon”

ACTRESS: Yolande Moreau, “Séraphine”
Runner-up: Carey Mulligan, “An Education”

ACTOR: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Runner-up: Colin Firth, “A Single Man”

ANIMATION: “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
Runner-up: “Up”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Summer Hours”
Runner-up: “The White Ribbon”

NEW GENERATION: Neill Blomkamp, “District 9”

MUSIC/SCORE:
T-Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton, “Crazy Heart”
Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, “Fantastic Mr. Fox”

PRODUCTION DESIGN:
Philip Ivey, “District 9”
Runner-up: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, “Avatar”

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Christian Berger, “The White Ribbon”
Runner-up: Barry Ackroyd, “The Hurt Locker”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Runner-up: Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Runner-up: Peter Capaldi, “In the Loop”

SCREENPLAY:
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”
Runner-up: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, “In the Loop”

DOCUMENTARY/NON-FICTION FILM:
“The Beaches of Agnès” and “The Cove” (tie)

DOUGLAS E. EDWARDS INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO:

C.W. Winter and Anders Edstrom, “The Anchorage”

Séraphine has been named Best Foreign Film of 2009 by the Women Film Critics Circle

The Women Film Critics Circle has honored Séraphine as the Best Foreign Film of 2009. The Women Film Critics Circle is an association of 47 women film critics from around the country and internationally, who are involved in print, radio, online and television media. They came together in 2004 to form the first women critics organization in the United States, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully, while offering a fresh and differently experienced perspective.

Industry veteran Brian Brown will lead sales operations for the new home video division, Music Box Films Home Entertainment.

Chicago, IL (December 3, 2009)– Chicago-based Music Box Films has announced the launch of their newly-formed home video arm, Music Box Films Home Entertainment. The announcement was made today by principals, Ed Arentz and William Schopf.

Best known for the release of TELL NO ONE, the top grossing foreign film of 2008 and the best-selling foreign language DVD in 2009, Music Box Films Home Entertainment plans to self-distribute 10-12 releases in the U.S. throughout the next year. The first releases are the critically acclaimed French films SHALL WE KISS and SERAPHINE, set for February 23 and March 23 street dates.

“Music Box Films has become a true force in independent cinema,” said Ed Arentz, Managing Director of Music Box Films. “We are thrilled to be in a position to take the next step and have our home entertainment division bring these incredible films directly to the retail marketplace.”

The label has also appointed industry veteran Brian Brown to head sales operations. According to Brown, “joining Music Box Films as Director of Sales is a great opportunity to continue a legacy started with New Yorker Films to bring critically acclaimed international films to the marketplace.

Among the other initial titles set for release through Music Box Films Home Entertainment include the critically acclaimed German film, CLOUD 9 and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO, one of the most talked-about international films of 2009 based on Stieg Larssson’s best-selling “Millennium” trilogy of novels.

About Music Box Films
Founded in 2007, Music Box Films serves the viewing interests of sophisticated US movie audiences in select cinemas nationwide, on DVD and Blu-Ray, on cable TV and on emerging VOD delivery formats. With a focus on foreign-language cinema, Music Box’s release of Guillaume Canet’s TELL NO ONE was the most popular foreign-language film of 2008. Music Box Films is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corporation which also owns and operates The Music Box Theatre, Chicago’s premiere venue for independent and foreign films.

The real-life story of Rita Atria, who broke the mafia’s code of silence to testify against the men who murdered her father and brother.

Chicago, IL…Music Box Films is pleased to announce the acquisition of all US rights to Marco Amenta’s THE SICILIAN GIRL. The film is based on the real-life drama of Rita Atria, who dared to break the mafia’s code of silence and testify against the “family business” after her father and brother were murdered.

The film stars Sicilian native Veronica D’Agostino (“Respiro”) as Rita and Gérard Jugnot (“The Chorus”) as the chief prosecutor of Palermo. Jugnot’s character is based on the anti-mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino, who takes Rita’s confession and becomes her friend and protector.

THE SICILIAN GIRL is just the latest recent Italian movie to depict organized crime’s pervasive grip on the country using a fresh narrative approach and a sharply critical tone. A native of Sicily, writer-director Amenta has directed several documentaries about the Sicilian Mafia including an award-winning 1997 documentary about Rita Atria (“One Girl Against the Mafia: Diary of a Sicilian Rebel”).

Music Box Films president William Schopf and Roissy Films sales agent Yohann Comte negotiated the deal. Roissy, now a division of Luc Besson’s Europa Corp, also co-produced the film along with R&C Produzioni and Eurofilm. Music Box and Roissy previously worked together on the Cesar-winning film, SERAPHINE.

According to Schopf, “THE SICILIAN GIRL is an inspiring story of personal courage and a new take on the Mafia that American audiences raised on ‘The Godfather’ won’t fail to respond to.”

THE SICILIAN GIRL had its US premiere earlier this year in New York at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual New Italian Cinema series. Upcoming film festival showings include the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2010. THE SICILIAN GIRL will open theatrically in the late spring, early summer of 2010.

International box office hit based on best-selling novel by Steig Larsson is slated for US release in March 2010.

Chicago, IL – The first feature film based on Swedish author Steig Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has been acquired by Chicago-based Music Box Films for US distribution.

The “Millennium” trilogy has made the late Steig Larsson the world’s second-best selling author last year (behind The Kite Runner’s Khaled Hosseini), with worldwide sales at well over 12 million copies. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has sold over 1,000,000 copies in the US.

Meanwhile the film version, which premiered in Scandinavia last February, has grossed almost $100 million at the box office, making it the world’s third biggest earning non-English language film of 2009 with openings still to come in Germany and all English-speaking territories. DVD sales in Scandinavia have already reached the phenomenal figure of 700,000 units.

Edward Arentz, Managing Director at Music Box says, “We are extremely pleased to offer US audiences the opportunity to see the riveting The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, one of the most talked-about international films of the year. Steig Larsson’s books and the films based on them are the biggest cultural export from Sweden since Abba and we are thrilled to be part of the phenomenon.”

Emmanuelle Bouilhaguet, Director of Scripted Sales, Zodiak Entertainment adds, “The US sale means that ‘Millennium’ has truly reached a global audience and we are delighted to be part of its on-going success.”

With a cast that includes Swedish star Michael Nyqvist and rising actress Noomi Rapace, the dark mystery thriller directed by Niels Arden Oplev has created a huge buzz around the globe.

Recently nominated for the People’s Choice Award by the European Film Academy, ‘Millennium’ is produced by Yellow Bird, the award-winning Swedish production company owned by the leading European group, Zodiak Entertainment.

Yellow Bird has recently announced the Scandinavian premiere of the next film adapted from the Stieg Larsson trilogy – Millennium 2: The Girl Who Played With Fire has outperformed the launch of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Sören Staermose, Producer of the Millennium series says, “The reception by Scandinavian audiences to “Millennium 2” has been staggering and it has been one of the biggest cinema launches in the region ever. We are delighted that the “Millennium” phenomenon keeps on growing.”

The third film Millennium 3: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest is currently in post-production and will launched later this year.

SERAPHINE was selected as the Best Film at the 2009 Scottsdale International Film Festival by its audience.

Subtitled films from Europe are alive and well in U.S. theatres, as the roster and performance of Chicago-based Music Box Films, with the smash Tell No One and the just-released Séraphine, so compellingly suggest. A new kid on the specialized distributor block—at a time when others have been fleeing the block—Music Box, founded in 2007, is an offshoot of Chi-town’s popular art-house venue The Music Box Theatre.

Subtitled films from Europe are alive and well in U.S. theatres, as the roster and performance of Chicago-based Music Box Films, with the smash Tell No One and the just-released Séraphine, so compellingly suggest. A new kid on the specialized distributor block—at a time when others have been fleeing the block—Music Box, founded in 2007, is an offshoot of Chi-town’s popular art-house venue The Music Box Theatre.

The Music Box family tree goes something like this: The distribution arm is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corp., which also owns and operates The Music Box Theatre. The paterfamilias of all this is Southport president and co-founder William G. Schopf, but on the distribution end, “Ed’s doing all the work,” says Schopf.

“Ed” is Ed Arentz, managing director of Music Box Films. Arentz bridges both the distribution and exhibition sectors. He most recently worked for Palm Pictures and continues to book New York’s Cinema Village, longtime home to foreign and indie fare. At Music Box, he is chief scout and dealmaker but works with a small Chicago-based support staff, including Brian Andreotti, who brought Arentz to Schopf’s attention.

But why did Schopf expand from exhibition into distribution? As he explains, “An indie art house is fairly rare these days and it’s a little fragile. We have a terrific staff at the theatre and a great reputation. So I thought that a vertical expansion into distribution, rather than expanding horizontally to run other theatres, presented a good opportunity for me and the staff.”

And there was also a matter of good timing. “Brian [Andreotti] knew Ed because he supplied us with films. But Palm was fading out and Ed became available.”

The good timing extends to Arentz’s view of the theatrical landscape. “The economic issues aside, theatrical for art films has never been stronger,” he says. “More theatres are fully focused on art-house programming or, in the case of the circuits, have available screens in place. There are more venues with arms open to subtitled films.”

The circuits, he elaborates, are building for multi-purpose and in demographically appropriate areas. He cites as examples Bowtie Cinemas in Richmond, Virginia, and new screens in Shreveport, Louisiana.

“You also have a new configuration going on: the not-for-profit theatre that is available for art fare in a downtown area. So there are today different scenarios for an art-house venue to come online,” Arentz reflects.

This change also affects the way distributors distribute. “Maybe a decade or more ago, a company like Sony Pictures Classics would use 25 or 50 prints to circulate their releases. Now you see a hundred or more prints floated,” Arentz notes. And despite all the gloom and doom in the indie world and DVD sector, “the fundamentals are there and the cinemas are prepared to play foreign-language films.”

While Arentz concedes that compelling cinema of any kind—subtitled or not—will find an audience, the focus for Music Box has been on foreign-language cinema, with Europe providing all of their releases so far.

So why this strong embrace of foreign films, when in recent years they had fallen out of favor? Arentz explains: “The trend goes hand-in-hand with globalization and the aging of the U.S. audience. These were the people who were at the heart of the film generation of the ’50s and ’60s who made foreign films so popular. Now they’re back as the leading edge of baby boomers. And they now have more leisure time.”

The film that put Music Box on the map by becoming an art-house phenom was Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One, the most popular foreign-language film of 2008 in the U.S. The thriller, which stars François Cluzet as a pediatrician who becomes involved in the deepening mystery of his beloved wife’s murder, had the advantages of working as a high-quality genre film and having as provenance a best-seller by well-known American author Harlan Coben. Also helpful was the handful of co-stars like Kristin Scott Thomas, Nathalie Baye, Andre Dussolier and Jean Rochefort, who are also familiar to U.S. art-house fans.

While all the usual distribution suspects ignored the film, Music Box closed the deal for Tell No One at the American Film Market. It had a long U.S. run from July 2008 through this past February and grossed $6.2 million. Says Arentz, “We had a slow rollout because everything we do is platform. We couldn’t strike prints fast enough and even had to turn down or postpone bookings. But the idea is to keep costs down. Prints are part of the P&A equation, so you have to find the sweet spot.”

Positive word of mouth proved the most valuable element in making the film a hit, Arentz feels. With the theatrical trophy behind it, he guesses that Tell No One will become the most popular foreign film DVD release in the U.S. for 2009.

Arentz concedes that the company’s next release, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, was a bit of a risk, as it is typical of the kinds of broad comedies, in this case a spoof of the old-fashioned international spy thriller, that play well to the natives but don’t travel well to the U.S. He points to the phenomenon of “reverse discrimination”: The more popular a film is in its native country, the more resistance there is to buy it for the States.

We took a chance [with the film] and went against the conventional wisdom that this is not the kind of film to import. But we know that our audiences are a lot more catholic in their tastes when it comes to foreign-language films. They’ll accept a wider range. The French living in the States who saw it loved it, but were surprised it got a release here. What the film needed was better reviews in the bigger markets and that didn’t happen.”

OSS, which features comedy star Jean Dujardin as a secret agent enmeshed in murder and intrigue in Cairo, was a box-office sensation in France but less sensational stateside. Still, the film, which boasts lots of charm, easy laughs and Dujardin’s delicious performance, was no money-loser for Music Box, says Arentz.

Music Box may have better luck with its current romantic charmer Shall We Kiss?, directed by Emmanuel Mouret, who co-stars opposite Virginie Ledoyen. A very French and very honest take on lust and love among some upwardly mobile, wholly likeable young people, with an utterly irresistible and believable cast, the film was first seen by Arentz at the 2007 AFM. He didn’t bite and only “warmed to it” when he saw it a second time.

“The film is classically French in its intellectualizing of love and desire and it is also witty, original and has a light touch. I was mainly blown away by the cast and the charm and honesty of the film.” Music Box has a lot of prints on screens, including recent openings in Atlanta and North Carolina, but, Arentz admits, “reviews could have been stronger. The reaction was good but reviews tended to call it a ‘trifle’ or ‘slight,’ in other words damning it with faint praise. Maybe the film is a little too French.”

In its first and only service deal, Music Box is distributing Cannes 2008 Jury Prize winner Il Divo for Chicago-based video company MPI, which handles Music Box’s product on DVD. The film, about the seemingly endless and controversial political career of Italy’s enigmatic and powerful Giulio Andreotti, is a hyperkinetic fever dream that delivers a spectacular performance by Toni Servillo, who received the European Film Award for Best Actor.
The film played strongly in New York and L.A. and has just opened in other major markets. Says Arentz, “Considering that Italian cinema here in the States has taken a back seat to the French, we will do quite nicely.”

Music Box’s latest big coup is the acquisition of the exquisite period piece Séraphine, starring Yolande Moreau as the real-life humble provincial servant and self-taught naïve painter Séraphine de Senlis (think an early-20th-century Susan Boyle who paints rather than sings) and Ulrich Tukur as the German ex-pat critic and collector who discovers her and becomes her patron.

After Music Box acquired the film in late 2008, it was honored a few months later with seven Césars, including Best Film and Best Actress for Moreau’s remarkable performance. Arentz, of course, expresses pleasure at such luck.

Music Box opened the film on June 5 in New York and L.A. and will gradually expand it. Arentz calls himself “guardedly optimistic” and hopes to play the picture into the fall. Other distributors had a chance at Séraphine when it played Toronto last fall, but Music Box jumped. Reviews should be strong and hopefully those other key elements will kick in.

Staying on its European tear but crossing another border, Music Box recently acquired two German films. Arentz calls the award-winning Cloud 9 (Wolke 9), directed by Andreas Dresen, “groundbreaking because of its depiction of the sexuality of people in their late 60s and 70s. It’s a love story presented very matter-of-factly and explicitly.” Just how “explicit,” Arentz won’t elaborate, but he admits, “We’ll probably go out unrated.” The film “insists that sagging flesh is a thing of beauty. It tells a moving story and shows that these elderly people have erotic lives.”

Music Box did the deal for the suspenseful adventure film North Face (Nordwand) at the recent Berlin Film Festival. Based on a true story and co-starring Ulrich Tukur (also featured in Séraphine), North Face is about the 1936 competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. It was Nazi propaganda at the time that urged Germany’s Alpinists to conquer the unclimbed north face of the Swiss massif—the Eiger. Two reluctant German climbers take the dare and begin their daring ascent.

Arentz calls the film “really gripping” and “an interesting metaphor of the impact of the Nazis.” It was a U.K. review for the picture that first sparked Arentz’s interest.
The high quality of the films Music Box acquires is indisputable, but how does the company meet the challenge of making audiences aware in so charged and crowded an environment? Arentz admits, “It’s problematic. Print advertising in daily and weekly papers is more expensive, even though it may be delivering a smaller audience or readership. Plus, more and more critics that people are familiar with are getting laid off. But because the audiences for our kind of films are more traditional in their media sources, the papers work better for our films. Our films are also review-driven and these reviews often also end up online. But the fact that film critics on the Net are less familiar and sometimes more amateur is changing the dynamic a bit.”

Music Box’s experience with Tell No One proved a lesson. Explains Arentz, “It was illustrative that reviews and word of mouth remain the most important things.” Tell No One was driven by “the traditional thing of people talking to their friends,” he notes. For this reason, Music Box is a big believer in doing lots of advance screenings to get the word out. And, adds Arentz, “if a film works, it almost doesn’t matter about the advertising.”

Schopf, also wearing his exhibitor’s hat, cites an interesting difference between U.S. and overseas audiences. “We’re fairly unique and isolated here because, except for some exceptions like some major markets, our people here are just not that used to coming into contact with other cultures in a meaningful way. So foreign-language films here can mean a harder sell than in Australia or Europe.”

Not just in the theatrical game, Music Box gets all rights for the U.S. and sometimes Canada is included. In the case of French films, rights have usually already been sold for Quebec, but Music Box can opt for English-speaking Canada.

The focus is always on theatrical, but Music Box delivers to all other formats, whether DVD and Blu-ray, cable and even emerging electronic delivery formats (although the prospect of watching the visually and aurally dazzling widescreen spectacle Il Divo on a cell-phone boggles the mind).

With so many films out there at so many festivals and markets where so many often aggressive and deep-pocketed corporate-owned competitors vie for art-house product, Arentz appears to have his work cut out for him. But that’s not quite how he sees it: “The hard part is marketing the damn thing; the fun part is finding it.” In fact, Arentz concedes that “the trick is to find films that are easier to market, if not necessarily better.”

The Music Box lesson for these distressed times—whether the product is subtitled or not—might be: Work hard, keep it fun and lean, but get lucky.

Music Box Films is pleased to announce the acquisition of all U.S. rights to two 2008 German productions: North Face (Nordwand) and Cloud 9 (Wolke 9) by Andreas Dresen.

Chicago, IL — Music Box Films is pleased to announce the acquisition of all U.S. rights to two 2008 German productions: North Face (Nordwand) by Philipp Stolzl from Beta Cinema and Cloud 9 (Wolke 9) by Andreas Dresen from Match Factory.

Cloud 9 is the groundbreaking and lyrical story of a 67-year old married woman who rediscovers passion and her sexuality when she falls in love with a 76-year old man. Cloud 9 won an Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the Best Director and Best Actress prizes at this year’s German Film Awards.

Based on a true story, North Face is a suspenseful adventure film about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. Set in 1936, as Nazi propaganda urges the nation’s Alpinists to conquer the unclimbed north face of the Swiss massif —- the Eiger — two reluctant German climbers begin their daring ascent.

“These two films suggest the breadth and vitality of today’s German film industry. Cloud 9, while grounded in realism, is also amazingly romantic and really novel in its insistence on the erotic life of senior citizens. Northface is a gripping film with a vivid sense of its historic moment, and an homage and critique of the great German mountain films of the 20s and 30s. We are looking forward to introducing these films to American audiences,” states Music Box Films’ Arentz.

Both films are scheduled for a third quarter release in the United States.

Terms were negotiated for Music Box films by partners Ed Arentz and William Schopf. Terms for Cloud 9 were negotiated by Michael Weber of The Match Factory, and North Face by Andreas Rothbauer of Beta Cinema.

Recent Music Box Films releases include the critical and box office hit Tell No One directed by Guillaume Canet, and the romantic comedy Shall We Kiss? directed by Emmanuel Mouret. Music Box Films’ next release is Séraphine by Martin Provost, winner of 7 Cesar Awards, including Best Film and Best Actress.

SÉRAPHINE was honored for seven Césars, including Best Film and Best Actress.

SÉRAPHINE was honored at the 2009 César Awards winning prizes for Best Film, Original Ccreenplay, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score and Best Set Design. More information can be found at indieWIRE.