ContentFilm International will represent foreign sales excluding the UK in Berlin on the hot World Cinema Dramatic Competition entry.

Ian Palmer’s film premiered in Park City on Friday [21] and follows an ongoing family feud in a Traveller clan that is routinely settled by a bare-knuckle fight.

CAA represents rights and closed the deal with ContentFilm on Friday night. The agency is fielding offers for a remake, with multiple studios reportedly pursuing the option.

Teddy Leifer’s Rise Films produced and Alan Maher served as executive producer. Knuckle was produced with the Irish Film Board and BBC Storyville, with support from Culture Ireland and UK Film Council.

Elsewhere buyers are making offers on titles but an on-site North American deal is yet to materialise. Nobody will be alarmed by this, however, given the cautious acquisitions climate these days and the fact that the festival has barely been going for two days.

Offers are on the table for Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times, The Guard, Project Nim, Margin Call and The Future, among others.

Overall attendees are busy screening films and taking meetings and people are confident that deals will close, although it remains to be seen what the titles will go for and whether they have wide appeal.

So far no single Sundance entry has broken out. Saturday’s anticipated premieres include My Idiot Brother, The Devil’s Double, Like Crazy and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, although SPWA already lays claim to North American rights on Morgan Spurlock’s documentary.

Sunday’s hot tickets include Another Happy Day, Elite Squad 2 and Kevin Smith’s Red State, which will be followed immediately by a live auction for distribution rights. Smith has been highly protective of the print and is understood to be personally bringing it to the festival.

The controversial pastor Fred Phelps is believed to be preparing a protest over the film’s thinly veiled attack on religious fundamentalism.

Meanwhile TLA Releasing said it had picked up worldwide rights to the Shumanski Brothers’ Blackmail Boys. Joe Swanberg stars in the tale of two young lovers who search for a state that can marry them. TLA plans a spring release. The film is not screening in Sundance.