Memento Films Distribution's Managing Director Alexandre Mallet-Guy who picked up the film from The Match Factory on the eve of the film's world premiere at Cannes' Un Certain Regard last May, is thrilled. "Although Oslo, August 31st is a dark movie, it has obviously captured the French critics and the audience's minds," he told nordiskfilmogtvfond.com.
Released on 38 French screens on February 29, Oslo August 31st opened at number four, selling over 30,000 tickets. The film had an amazing 797 admission per screen average, the second best after the French comedy The Players starring the Oscar winning local star Jean Dujardin. In Paris, the average was even more impressive with 2,150 admissions per screen according to Mallet-Guy.
As a comparison, Bent Hamer's Kitchen Stories which was - until now - the biggest Norwegian success in France, sold around 15,000 tickets from 49 cinemas in its first week, with an average 300 admissions per screen, and the film's final figures were 75,000 admissions. Memento Films now plans to add 15 prints to Oslo, August 31st's release, including four in Paris. Mallet-Guy is confident the film will sell 100,000 to 200,000 tickets in total, which would make it the biggest Norwegian film hit in France.
"This is a real success for a Nordic auteur film here, an even greater success for Joachim Trier whose first film Reprise only had a limited release in 2008 [via Malavida]" says Mallet-Guy. The distributor attributes the film's success to the rave reviews across the French press and the lack of competition. "This is a time of the year when French kids are on holidays, so screens are usually filled with family movies and there are few arthouse quality films out there. The film's success is also down to Memento Films' own promotional campaign that received a €15,000 financial support from the Angers Premiers Plans Festival where the film won the Grand Jury award and Best Acting award last January. "We put up a rare poster campaign for a Norwegian auteur film on 500 newsstands and we took a lot of ads in French newspapers," observes Mallet-Guy.
The French distributor said he is hoping to continue his working relationship with Joachim Trier, "the most gifted Scandinavian director of his generation". The next project lined up for the Norwegian prodigy is Louder than Bombs, co-written again with Eskil Vogt and produced by Motlys. In our last interview with him (click here), Trier described the project as the story of a family - a father and his two sons - who mourn the loss of the mother, a polyphonic storyline like Reprise, with different moods, humour, sadness that come together in hopefully an original way. "