AV Pictures kicks off Cannes Market with key deals on Josh Reed’s Primal.

Vic Bateman’s AV Pictures has got off to a roaring start to the market closing deals on Josh Reed’s Aussie horror picture Primal with IFC Films for the US and Anolis for Germany.

The film, screening in the market, is billed as “a frenzied, visceral nightmare in the vein of Cabin Fever”. It is about a group of friends who join anthropology student, Dace, on a journey to study a remote, ancient rock painting.

Their excitement vanishes when one of the team becomes delirious after skinny-dipping in the waterhole. Feverish, bleeding and confused, she physically and mentally regresses to a vicious primal state. The cast is led by Krew Boylan and Zoe Tuckwell-Smith.

AV is also screening Mo Ali’s Shank and Stuart St. Paul’s action thriller, Freight, in the market this week.