01-07-2008

Czech Distribution Success: Beauty in Trouble in the USA

    Prague, 27 June 2008Jan Hřebejek’s and Petr Jarchovský’s movie BEAUTY IN TROUBLE (KRÁSKA V NESNÁZÍCH) went into distribution in the USA on Tuesday, June 13th, when it premiered at Angelika Film Center in New York’s SoHo district. Thanks to good reviews and targeted promotion, the film became the cinema’s biggest box office hit during the first weekend of screening and remains on Angelika’s silver screen for its third week.

    The numerous reviews from New York’s and Washington’s most important periodicals were, all in all, extremely positive: Jeannette Catsoulis from the The New York Times ranked the film as the best new film of the week, and Joshua Land gave the film a high ranking in Time Out New York, citing the actors’ performances, specifically that of Jiří Schmitzer.

    Andrew O'Hehir, in an excellent review on Salon.com entitled "Sex, death and the city (i.e. Prague)" and parodying the current hullabaloo surrounding this month’s commercial miracle, considers the Czech feature one of the best foreign films of the year. In his opinion, Hřebejk and Jarchovský are not only among the cream of the foreign filmmaking crop but are also capable of making films that speak to American audiences. Beauty in Trouble also received high ratings in reviews appearing in The Washington Times and The Washington Post in which the acting performances of the entire cast were evaluated as exceptional.

    This weekend the movie’s distribution will expand to New York’s suburbs and to three other theatres owned by the Clearview Cinemas chain located in Manhasset, NY, Greenburg, NY, and Montclair, NJ. The film has concurrently been showing for two weeks in Landmark E Street Theater, Washington, D.C.’s most important cinema for foreign film premieres. This weekend five prints of the movie will be in distribution, and the distribution plan calls for another five prints to be put into circulation. In the next two weeks distribution will be expanded to Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia.