IFC Midnight is partnering with MPI Media Group and its subsidiary Dark Sky Films to release Jim Mickle’s Stake Land.

Earlier in the day Sony Pictures Classics announced it had acquired all US rights to Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness and Zeitgeist Films announced its deal in Berlin for Cannes 2010 closing night film The Tree.

The vampire epidemic thriller Stake Land premiered at Toronto last autumn where it won the Midnight Madness audience award and IFC will give it a nationwide theatrical platform release and day-and-date VOD launch on Apr 22.

Connor Paolo, Danielle Harris, Kelly McGillis, Nick Damici, and Michael Cerveris star in the vampire epidemic story based on a screenplay by Mickle and Damici. Larry Fessenden was among the producers.

Sony Pictures Classics acquired In Darkness from Beta Cinema. The Poland-set wartime take follows a robber who hides Jews and develops a conscience.

Zeitgeist Films closed a deal with Memento Films in Berlin for US rights to Julie Bertuccelli’s English-language drama The Tree, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg as a mother of four whose husband has recently died.