Le Secret de ma mère is the latest member of the million-dollar club, having pulled in a total of $1.7 million after four weeks on screens in Quebec, maintaining momentum against competition from major U.S. releases including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

The family melodrama – directed by Ghyslaine Côté and starring Ginette Reno – was the number one domestic movie in Canada for the week of July 21, the most recent full week for which industry-wide results were available, drawing an average of almost $7,000 from 75 screens. Its total reached $1.7 million over the July 28 weekend, according to distributor Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm.

‘Our numbers were a bit soft the first weekend [against Pirates], but the second weekend did better and the third weekend is almost at the same level,’ says AAV SVP Patrick Roy.

AAV also has the bilingual police buddy flick Bon Cop, Bad Cop bowing on Aug. 4 in Quebec, which promises to be a hot counter-programmer to Secret.

‘Bon Cop is for teenagers, Secret is for an older, mostly [female] audience. The two films really have two different targets,’ Roy adds.

But Alliance Atlantis is delaying the comedy’s planned English-Canadian bow by a week to Aug. 18, allowing more time for the Quebec media spill to take hold in the rest of Canada, and for the heat from Hollywood blockbusters such as Pirates and Miami Vice to dissipate.

‘We think it’s a better date. [We] looked at release schedules with other films, and concluded it was probably better to go one week after and still be able to build on the success of Quebec,’ says Roy.

Elsewhere, Equinoxe Films’ Un dimanche à Kigali ended its Quebec run after 14 weeks, with a total haul of just over $1 million.

Equinoxe SVP Michael Mosca says Quebecers responded well to the French-language love story amid Rwandan ethnic cleansing, in part because it was shot in Africa, and also stars Luc Picard (Savage Messiah).

‘We felt the Quebec audiences have matured to a point where they can [respond to] a good story, regardless of the fact that it did not happen here,’ says Mosca.

Also on a Canadian tour is Filmoption’s Kamataki, which has drawn $129,717 after 11 weeks in release, mostly from within Quebec.