Cannes slate includes Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations.

Paolo Branco’s Paris-based Alfama Films has hired former Le Pacte executive Elisabeth Perlié to head up its international sales and distribution activities.

“I’ve been brought into give some direction to the sales and distribution teams which have been working without a manager for the past few months,’ said Perlié.

At Cannes, Perlié and her sales team will be focusing on two titles: Mathieu Amalric’s The Blue Room and Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations.

Actor and director Amalric’s adaptation of a novel by French crime-writer Georges Simenon, about an illicit love affair that takes a murderous turn, will premiere in Un Certain Regard.

Alfama will also give buyers a sneak preview of Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations, starring John Malkovich as the Italian womaniser Giacomo Casanova, in the Cannes Marché.

“It’s a select preview for buyers ahead of a festival premiere this summer,” said Perlié.

The hybrid work is an adaptation of Sturminger’s chamber opera play The Giacomo Variations about Casanova and based on scenes from the operas of Mozart.

Perlié began her sales career at the now defunct Gemini Films, before working on Bac and then setting up the sales department at Jean Labadie’s Le Pacte, where she was head of sales until 2011.