21/04/2006

UK specialty distribution company Maiden Voyage Pictures (MVP) is betting high on today’s 70-screen release of Rollin With the Nines, the second film by Julian Gilbey (Reckoning Day) and the first British black crime film ever made in the UK.

The film was bought by MVP Managing Director Björn Ricketts last December after it won the Best UK Feature Film Prize at London’s Raindance Film Festival. Described by Ricketts as an action film in the mould of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the film is targeting the UK black community and music lovers of contemporary urban soundtracks from Dizzee, Kano, Simon Webbe, Sizzla, Life, and so forth. The marketing campaign included publicity and advertising in music magazines and radio stations, as well as tube advertising and billboards.

Ricketts, who wants to contribute to film culture in the UK, has an eclectic mix of titles for distribution in 2006. In early May, he will oversee a small release of Marco Ferreri’s La grande bouffe; the Spanish award-winning film by Joaquín Oristrell Unconscious [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring Luis Tosar and Leonor Watling, will be released in July; and the UK spoof documentary Rabbit Fever by Ian Denyer, featuring the world’s biggest vibrator and cameos by UK celebrities such as Richard Branson and Tom Conti, will be released early September.

Other European productions or co-productions opening today include the Belgian/French/Italian/Japanese co-production L’enfer by Danis Tanovic, distributed on 5 screens by Momentum Pictures; UK film Mistress of Spice by Paul Mayeda Barges, released by Entertainment Film Distributors; Christopher Ganz’s chiller Silent Hill [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a French/Japanese/US co-production released by Pathe Distribution on 300 screens (on the same day as its US release); and Kevin Reynords’ US/UK co-production Tristan & Isolde [+see also:
trailer
film profile], released by 20th Century Fox.