Katapult scores with Zidane

Katapult Film Sales hasscored a Japanese deal with Cine Qua Non for football documentary Zidane: A21st Century Portraitabout Real Madrid superstar Zinedine Zidane. UIP pre-bought the rights forFrance. Japan's Presidio has bought Klimt, starring John Malkovich,from Independent Film Sales. The UK sales outfit has also sold the biopic ofthe painter to Sponge for South Korea, Turkey's Barbar, Israel's Noah andProoptiki for Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and the Balkans.

Shoreline Green with Coupland screenplay

Morris Ruskin's ShorelineEntertainment has picked up worldwide rights excluding Canada to the DouglasCoupland original screenplay Everything's Gone Green. The deal was concluded with Radke Films and TrueWest Films. The upcoming project centres on a good-natured slacker whofalls into a money-laundering scheme and ends up having a crisis of confidence.THINKFilm holds Canadian rights to the project, which stars Paulo Costanzo, andis being directed by Paul Fox, and is set to go into production on Jun 6.

Dog day afternoon

The prestigious Palm Dogdeliberations will take place on Friday at the UK Film Centre in Cannes with anew addition to the jury - Tartan Films' Hamish McAlpine. The fifth annualawards ceremony is sponsored by Our Dogs Magazine, Harrods, Wedgwood, Victoria& Albert Museum and Courvoisier and will award the best canine performancein a Cannes film. Among the chief contenders are dogs in The Mighty Celt,Greyfriars Bobby and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. McAlpine joins London critics DerekMalcolm, Peter Bradshaw, Charles Gant and Jason Solomons, with, as always, TobyRose The Palm Dog host.

Sola's Gadgetville

Solveig Langeland's Sola Media has picked up worldwide rights tochildren's animated feature Lotte From Gadgetville, which is now inproduction and ready for delivery in early 2006. Riina Sildos of EestiJoonisfilm in Estonia is co-producing with Rija Films in Latvia. The deal wasnegotiated by Riina Sildos of Eesti Joonisfilm, Solveig Langeland of Sola Mediaand Beatrix Wesle of Atrix Films.

Splendid Re-cycle

Germany's Splendid hasacquired the Pang Brothers' $5m horror movie Re-cycle, starring Angelica Lee Sin-je, which is co-financedand sold internationally by Hong Kong-based Universe Entertainment. The film previouslywent to Spain's Aurum, the UK's Tartan Films, France's Pathe and Universal forKorea and Japan.

HK, Taiwan on a Promise

Etchie Stroh's MoonstoneEntertainment has sold Chen Kaige's big-budget fantasy epic The Promise to Deltamac for Hong Kong and its parent company CMCGroup for Taiwan. Deltamac/CMC have also taken rights for Hong Kong and Taiwanto Summit Entertainment's Michael Clayton, set to star George Clooney. Separately, Deltamac has acquired HongKong rights to Atom Egoyan's competition title Where The Truth Lies from Summit.

Best ManWorks

UK salesoutfit The Works has secured deals to four territories for Stefan Schwartz'sromantic comedy The Best Man, starring Stuart Townsend and Amy Smart. They are: Italy(Italian International Films), South Korea (Shinabo), Russia and the CIS(Luxor), and South Africa (Ster Kinekor). The Works says it is fielding offersfor Israel, the Middle East, Spain, Eastern Europe and Singapore.

Fist flies to Filmexport

French distributorMetropolitan Filmexport has acquired Directors' Fortnight title Crying Fist. The South Korean film, which premiered inDirector's Fortnight, is directed by Ryoo Seung-Wan. Fist is about a young man on the rails who finds new hopethrough boxing.

Watson named as Sarajevo's KatrinCartlidge Curator

The Sarajevo Festival hasannounced that Emily Watson is to be this year's Katrin Cartlidge Curator.Watson (who appeared alongside Cartlidge in Breaking The Waves) will presentthe foundation's yearly grant to a young artist. The Festival runs from 19thto 27th August. Here in Cannes, the Sarajevo Festival has beenrunning the Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion at the Village International,presenting Bosnia-Herzegovina's 2004/2005 film projects and promoting Cinelink(the festival's annual Co-production Market.)