Montreal: Press reviews were largely exemplary but business at the box office for Charles Biname’s Le Coeur au Poing (France Film) is proving more difficult with receipts of $115,000 into the film’s fifth week of release on five screens. Coeur’s performance is partly judged against the high expectations set by Biname’s previous feature Eldorado, which pulled in $443,000 in 1995.

The results are from Alex Films, publisher of a biweekly (weekends and full week) Quebec-wide box-office report called Cine-Chiffres.

Another current Canadian release here is the Nelvana animation feature Pippi Longstocking (Behaviour Distribution), which has an excellent box office of $402,000 after eight weeks, including $361,000 in its French-track version Fifi Brindacier.

Louis Saia’s Les Boys (Films Lions Gate) tops Alex Films’ spring ’98 Information-Bulletin’s list of the top 26 Quebec theatrical films of all time with its ongoing earnings of $5.5 million (a sequel is in preproduction).

Alex’s list of upcoming April and early May Quebec releases from Canadian distributors includes Sonatine and Nightwatch (Alliance), Lars Von Tiers Retrospective (Film Tonic), Le Pari (Lions Gate), Spanish Prisoner (Behaviour), Hanna-Bi (Equinox), Jacques Leduc’s L’Age de Braise (France Films/April 24), J’irai au paradis car l’enfe… (Lions Gate), Martha Meets Frank, Daniel and Laurence (Alliance/France Film), Woo (Alliance), Wilde (Behaviour), Friend of the Deceased (Behaviour) and Sucre Amer (Film Tonic).

Francois Girard’s many places and many languages The Red Violin (Films Cineplex Odeon – Quebec) is slated for a June 5 release.