PARIS: A comedy debunking stereotypes about France s bleak north is expected this week to become the most successful French film ever, and is snapping at the heels of US blockbuster Titanic as all-time French box office champion.
Bienvenue chez les Ch tis (Welcome to the Land of the Ch tis) has pulled in more than 17 million viewers since it was released on Feb. 27.
By Sunday night, Pathe film distributors said the movie was set to inch past the current record holder, the classic 1966 comedy La Grande Vadrouille starring Louis de Funes, which was seen by 17.3 million people.
We should beat it, by around 5,000 or 10,000 tickets, said Pathe s head of distribution Henri Demoulin. The film was just 85,000 entries short of the record at close of business on Saturday night, he added.
At this rate, Bienvenue chez les Ch tis could go on to challenge Titanic, the most successful film ever released in France with 20.7 million entries.
Directed by and starring comic Danny Boon, the film takes aim at the prejudices about the Nord Pas de Calais region bordering Belgium to reveal the warmth of its people.
It tells the story of a southerner forced by his company to go north and who finds, once he has mastered the impenetrable accent, people who open their hearts to strangers.
The nickname Ch ti emerged during World War I when soldiers from the region were teased by comrades about their pronunciation of ch est ti, ch est mi instead of c est toi, c est moi (it s you, it s me).
Boon put the film s success down to a French need for something fraternal, that brings people together.
French comedies are often pretty cynical, we laugh quite cruelly at things, and the film is the opposite of that, he told AFP.
Shot on an ?11 million budget, the film has so far grossed ?99 million.
Bienvenue chez les Ch tis is to be offered to international buyers at next month s Cannes film festival under the English-language title Welcome to the Sticks.
It will also be shown at the opening of the City of lights, City of angels festival in Los Angeles on April 14-20, with Hollywood already rumored to be interested in a remake. -AFP
