Subsidiary Films Boutique also picks up two youthful Cannes titles.

The Missing Image

Paris-based Film Distribution (FD) has picked up Rithy Panh’s hybrid documentary The Missing Image, ahead of its premiere in Un Certain Regard in Cannes.

Franco-Cambodian Panh pieces together his adolescence in a Khmer Rouge labour camp, through archives and reenactments using small clay figurines, in the work.

The director is best known for 2003 documentary S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine.

“This is the most powerful documentary I have seen since Waltz With Bashir,” said Films Distribution co-chief Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, referring to Ari Folman’s award-winning hybrid work.

“I did not know a movie could make me cry over little clay statuettes.”

The documentary is produced by Paris-based Catherine Dussart of CDP.

In related news, FD Berlin-based subsidiary Films Boutique has acquired Mexican filmmaker Diego Quemada-Diez’ debut picture La Jaula de Oro, following four teenagers as they cross Mexico on route for the US, which is also due to premiere in Un Certain Regard.

The outfit has also picked up Yann Gonzales’ Les Rencontres d’Après Minuit about a young couple who decide to organise an orgy with the help of their servant to spice up their lives.

The ensemble cast features Beatrice Dalle, Eric Cantona, Alain Fabien Delon, Kater Moran, Niels Schneider and Nicolas Maury. The film will premiere in a Critics’ Week special screening.

FD’s Panh pick-up, meanwhile, adds to a slate already packed with Cannes titles.

The company is also handling Iraqi-Kurdish Hiner Saleem’s My Sweet Pepperland (previously Aga) which was announced as a late Un Certain Regard addition on Friday. 

Set in the remote Kurdish Khwakork border area between Iraq, Iran and Turkey, it revolves around a police chief and schoolmistress who challenge a local drugs baron.

Other festival titles include Valerie Bruno Tedeschi’s semi-autobiographical Palme d’Or contender A Castle in Italy and Katell Quillévéré’s Critics’ Week opener Suzanne.