There is new talk of a major turnaround for Quebec features at the box office this fall.

In less than two months, four films – Jean Marc Vallee’s La Liste noire, Robert Menard’s L’Enfant d’eau, Robert Lepage’s Le Confessionnal and Louis Saia’s Le Sphinx – have combined receipts in the $2 million range, with Vallee’s low-budget, film-noir thriller, distributed by Astral Films, chalking up $920,910 at the box office after only seven weeks.

L’Enfant d’eau (Film Tonic) had $338,129 in earnings after eight weeks, while Le Confessional (Alliance Vivafilm) reported receipts of $303,750 after four weeks. Both films were ranked among the top 10 over several weeks. Saia’s suburban comedy Le Sphinx (cfp) had scored earnings of $236,718 after five weeks.

The recent launches have benefited from reams of consumer press coverage following the Montreal and Toronto festivals, specifically L’Enfant d’eau and Le Confessionnal, but the key to the season’s success is more likely the result of the unprecedented number of theatrical prints in circulation, up to 100 for the four films combined.

A number of distributors claim the box office for Quebec feature films started an upwards swing last fall following the release of Charles Biname’s Gen-X slice-of-life film, Eldorado (Alliance).