Completed yesterday, one of the most interesting deals so far this European Film Market involved a film which may only be ready for Berlin 2005.

Paradise Now, a personal journey by two people become suicide bombers is being directed by Dutch-Palestinian Hany Abou Assad, who previously made Rana's Wedding.

Sold by Celluloid Dreams, Paradise Now was picked up by the five distributors which make up buying alliance Indie Circle: A-Film in The Netherlands, Cineart/Cinelibre in Belgium, Haut Et Court in France, Lucky Red/EyeScreen In Italy and Frenetic in Switzerland.

Indie Circle executive Christophe Mercier said: "This is our first deal done at script stage. This is exactly the way we want to operate and the kind of movie we want to be involved in."

The film was in fact sold to the individual distributors, who in agreement with Celluloid, have partially cross-collateralised their acquisition terms.

In separate deals the project was also sold to Golem for Spain and Prooptiki for Greece.

Celluloid chief Hengameh Panahi said: "this is a hugely important and timely film and has attracted the kind of support it deserves from buyers and institutions."

Developed at the Sundance Institute it boasts an Israeli production company Lama Films, alongside Augustus Film of The Netherlands, Lumen Films of France and Razor Films of Germany. Additional funding came from the Dutch Film Fund, Filmstiftung NRW, Medienboard Brandenburg Berblin and Media i2i.