AFM Daily: News Digest

4 November, 2009 | By Screen staff

ScreenDaily brings you all of the stories from the AFM dailies.

Metropolitan Films has taken all rights in France to West Is West, the sequel to the award-winning hit East Is East, from Icon Entertainment International (IEI) Other deals concluded so far include Lusomundo for Portugal, Odeon for Greece and Prime Pictures for the Middle East.

Written by the same writer, Ayub Khan-Din, and produced by the same creative team with the support of BBC Films, West is West is also based on and inspired by autobiographical events. The sequel takes the Khan family on a journey from Salford, England to rural Pakistan.

Since being announced in Cannes, Donald Petrie’s Your Perfect Angel the popcorn romantic comedy set around internet dating, has sold in a slew of territories for Intandem.

Deals now done on the film include Italy (Mediafilm), CIS (CP Digital), Scandinavia (Svensk), eastern Europe (Freeman), Greece (Village Roadshow) and Indonesia (PT Amero).

These follow on from deals already announced, among them Germany (Splendid) and Portugal (Lusomundo.)

Veteran auteur Raul Ruiz’s long-gestating big budget medieval epic Love and Virtue, which chronicles the battles waged within King Charlemagne’s empire, has been given a new lease of life.

New Australian outfit Galloping Films, headed by Carlos Alperin, has now come on board as sales agent and closed a handful of pre-sales here to the CIS (Lizard Cinema), Bulgaria (Tandem Video), and the Middle East (Falcon.)

Meanwhile, the big name cast announced in 2007 is still in place. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, John Malkovich, Daryl Hannah and Damien Lewis remain committed to the film.

The aim is to shoot the film in early summer next year on location in Belgium and Luxembourg before moving to London.

Images From The Playground: Ingmar Bergman at Work, the Stig Bjorkman documentary based on legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s home movies and on interviews with key Bergman collaborators, has sold to Janus Film in the US as well as Manga in Spain and Teodora Film in Italy.

The 30 minute film, which has an introduction by Martin Scorsese and which premiered in official selection Cannes, has been snapped up by buyers who already own rights to Bergman movies and are looking for high-quality DVD extras.

Sales agent Svensk has also sold Images From The Playground to Bohemia Film (Czech Republic), Costa De Castelo (Portugal) and YLE (Finland.)

Midway through the market, Scandinavian sales outfit NonStop Sales has closed a deal on family yarn Magic Silver with Flins Y Piniculas in Spain.

Forward Motion Entertainment has sold Bruce McDonald’s Canadian horror film Pontypool, screening today, to Anchor Bay in Australia and Camro Films in Scandinavia. The film about a zombie virus outbreak in Ontario and stars Stephen McHattie. Deals previously closed with Kaleidoscope in the UK, Mirovision in South Korea, Phoenicia in the Middle East, A-Plus in Turkey, MIG in Germany, and Maple in Canada. IFC holds US rights.

Magic Silver is the latest gnome-themed film to have appeared on NonStop’s slate. It’s about Princess Bluerose, a small gnome living deep in the Norwegian mountains. The film was sold to Bluemedia Times in China.

NonStop has also closed a Spanish deal on Reykjavik-Rotterdam, the thriller produced by and starring Baltasar Kormakur with A Contracorriente.

Laure Charpentier’s steamy and controversial drama Gigola, handled at the AFM by Wide Management, has been pre-sold to World Cinema in South Korea.

The film, based on Charpentier’s autobiographical novel, is expected to be ready for Cannes.

The cast is led by Lou Doillon, Eduardo Noriega, Rosy De Palma, Thierry Lhermitte and Marisa Paredes.

French sales outfit Bac has sold some key territories on its new Catherine Deneuve drama Hidden Diary (Meres Et Filles) which is receiving its first market screenings here. Alcine-Terran has taken Japan, Victory has taken Benelux, Imovision has taken Brazil, Mont Blanch has bought Switzerland and Khan Entertainment has bought Taiwan.

Bac has also sold Russia to Super Music on Lascars, the animated comedy with a voice cast headed up by Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. The film, which made 600,000 admissions in France and was also successfully released in Belgium by Les Films D’Elysee.

Meanwhile, another animated film on Bac’s slate, Eckart Fingberg’s CGI penguin movie Jasper, has been told to Axia in Canada.

UK genre specialist Jinga Films has acquired world rights to John Michael Elfers supernatural horror picture Finale, marking the company’s first foray into handling US films.

Finale, which was spotted at Screamfest LA, is about a family’s descent into denial and paranoia after the death of the oldest son. Though the death was labeled a suicide, the strange circumstances in which the son died lead his mother to believe there are darker forces at work. The film was shot on location in Ohio and Compton.

UK outfit Stealth Media is to handle world sales on Iron Sky, the Nazis-on-the-moon project that is being put together by Finnish outfit Blind Spot Pictures. Iron Sky, to be directed by Timo Vuorensola, is in pre-production. The screenplay has been written by Johanna Sinisalo, a prolific Finnish science fiction writer. Michael Kalasniko (Howard Stern’s Private Parts) is also co-writing. Now it’s 2018, the Nazi invasion is on its way and the world is goose-stepping toward its doom,” is the producers’ tag line for the movie, which stars Udo Kier as the Führer.

Stealth has also picked up international sales on The Scribbler, a noir sci-fi action thriller from director Jake West and writer Dan Schaffer, the team behind UK horror comedy film, Doghouse. The Scribbler is based on Schaffer’s graphic novel published by Image comics.

London-based The Works International has closed its first deal of AFM 2009 on Venice / Toronto hit I Am Love (Io Sono L’Amore) to Scanbox for Scandinavia. The much lauded film is directed by Luca Guadagnino
and stars Oscar winner Tilda Swinton. The deal was negotiated by Clare Crean, Sales Manager at The Works International and Jim Frazee of Scanbox Entertainment on the first day of the AFM. I Am Love is a
Mikado Film and First Sun production in cooperation with Rai Cinema in association with La Dolce Vita Productions and Pixel DNA.

ContentFilm International has picked up worldwide rights (excluding Australia/NZ) on drama Matching Jack, directed by award-winning Nadia Tass (Amy, Pure Luck, The Big Steal, Malcolm) who also produced it along with David Parker (Amy, Pure Luck, The Big Steal, Malcolm) and Richard Keddie (Little Fish). The film, shot on location in Australia, is in post-production. The cast includes James Nesbit, Jacinda Barrett, Richard Roxburgh and Tom Russell. Parker and Lynne Renew wrote the script.

Neo Classics has picked up US rights to Felix van Groeningen’s The Misfortunates, the Belgian submission for the foreign language Oscar which MK2 is selling at AFM. The film has now passed 250,000 admissions in Belgium and over 50,000 in The Netherlands.

CJ Entertainment sold Park Shin-woo’s thriller White Night and Yoon Jae-gu’s thriller Secret to Taiwanese distributor Catchplay while Yoshihiro Nakamura’s Golden Slumber went to Filmware for Taiwan. Disaster epic Haeundae was sold to ECS for the Middle East and Singapore’s Festive Films took Bong Joon-ho’s Mother which is Korea’s entry for next year’s Academy Awards.

South Korea’s Mirovision has sold sleeper hit Lifting King Kong to Golden Harvest for Hong Kongand China. The company also sealed further deals on horror title Deathbell, which has been a hot seller in previous markets, to KMCG for Japan and Thailand and Elephant Fims for French-speaking territories.

Cinema Epoch has acquired North American rights to Korean titles Eye For An Eye and Fighter In The Wind from Seoul-based sales agent Finecut. Both films will be a part of Cinema Epoch’s theatrical series of contemporary Korean cinema, which will have a tour in major US cities, followed by DVD releases.

Japan’s Kadokawa Pictures has sold horror pictures, Ju-on: White Ghost and Ju-on: Black Ghost, to US distributor Media Blasters and RAM India for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Kadokawa also sold $20m drama The Unbroken, starring Ken Watanabe and based on Toyoko Yamasaki’s best-selling novel about political intrigue behind the 1985 Japan Airlines crash, to Consolidated Theatres in Hawaii.