STAUNCH admirers of David Cronenberg might be advised to check out flights to Paris. Cronenberg's film of J.G. Ballard's Crash, which was by far the most controversial film at Cannes this year, has opened in France and on its first five days on release took a 20 per cent share of the French box office for the week.

There is still no sign of any distributor buying the British and Irish rights to Crash, which generated a great deal of nervousness among distributors at Cannes and took a minor prize from the festival jury members who were, according to their president, Francis Ford Coppola, evenly divided on the movie's merits. Crash has yet to open in the US or in Cronenberg's native Canada.

Meanwhile, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal, which deals with an uneasy Northern Ireland ceasefire in 1975, has yet another scheduled release date in Britain. Originally set to open on St Patrick's Day this year, it was deferred until May 10th; however, while the Irish release went ahead on that date on both sides of the Border, the London opening was put on hold again. It has now been re scheduled to open in London on October 18th and across Britain in November.