German firms score Cannes sales

Expectations of this year’s Marché du Film in Cannes were “more than surpassed”, according to Munich-based ARRI Worldsales.

ARRI head of world sales and production Antonio Exacoustos and director of sales and acquisition Moritz Hemminger told ScreenDaily that pre-sales with nine territories were concluded on the basis of a teaser for Gunnar Karlsson’s animation project Ploe: You Never Fly Alone.

The first project as part of a cooperation agreement between ARRI and the German animation studio Trixter was sold to H.G.C. (China), Kino Swiat (Poland), Smile Entertainment (South Korea), Shooting Stars (Middle East), FilmHouse (Israel) and Big Movie (Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).

In addition, deals were signed with KLB (France), FilmHouse (Israel), CDC (South America) and Smile Entertainment (South Korea) for Alain Gsponer’s family film The Little Ghost (Das kleine Gespenst), which is currently in postproduction and will be released in Germany by Universum Film on November 7.

Further sales on Wolfgang Groos’ family film Vampire Sisters (Die Vampirschwestern) were concluded with Exponenta Film for Russia and Snap TV for Latin America.

Meanwhile, Filmfest München announced on Tuesday [May 28] that one of ARRI’s new titles, Caroline Link’s Exit Marrakech, will have its world premiere as the Filmfest’s opening film in Munich’s Mathäser Cinema on June 28.

M-appeal reveals more sales

Berlin-based M-appeal revealed additional sales to those announced during the market in Cannes.

Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation has joined France’s Zootrope Films and Greece’s Ama Films as one of the distributors planning to bring Russian film-maker Yury Bykov’s Critics’ Week title The Major into the cinemas.

Artsploitation has picked up North American rights to Anne Zohra Berrached’s award-winning Two Mothers, which premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar at the Berlinale in February.

M-appeal also sold Artsploitation Rosa von Praunheim’s two documentaries New York Memories and King Of Comics, and Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi’s Suddenly Last Winter.

Ascot Elite adds six

On the buyers’ side, Zurich-based Ascot Elite Entertainment Group added another six titles acquired during its shopping spree in Cannes this year.

Picking up all German rights for German-speaking Europe, the new acquisitions are:

• Metallica – Through The Never 3D, aquired from Exclusive Media. Ascot Elite Filmverleih plans to release the $32m production in Germany parellel with Picturehouse’s US opening at the end of September;
  
  
• My Old Lady, a Paris-based comedy-drama starring Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Jane Birkin, from Protagonist Pictures;
  
  
• The Hooligan Factory, a spoof on such British soccer hooligan films, from Altitude Films;
  
  
• The Snow Queen (Snezhnaya Koroleva), Maxim Sveshnikov and Vlad Barbe’s 3D animated film of the Hans Christian Andersen classic. The $7m production, from Russian producers Wizard Animation, will be released in Russia and CIS by Bazelevs/Fox CIS at New Year 2014;
  
  
• Renny Harlin’s Devil’s Pass from Aldamisa. The story of the controversial Dyatlov Pass Incident from 1959, when nine Russian skiers mysteriously died, was released in Russia by Alexander Rodnyansky’s A Company Russia with Fox CIS. It will also be screened at Kinotavr’s Cinema on the Square in Sochi next week;
  
  
• Saving Santa 3D, an animated feature from CMG Cinema Management Group with the voices of Martin Freeman, Noel Clarke, Tim Curry, Joan Collins, Pam Ferris and Craig Fairbrass.

As previously reported, Ascot Elite picked up Swiss rights for Venus In Fur, The Last Witch Hunter, A Walk In The Woods, How To Catch A Monster, Heat and Silver Reel, as well as German and Swiss rights for the $13m Samuel L. Jackson drama Big Game and Dallas Buyers Club, starring Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto in the true story of Ron Woodroof.