EXCLUSIVE: UK deals for Abu-Assad’s Omar and Groning’s The Police Officer’s Wife.

UK distributor Soda Pictures has acquired Hany Abu-Assad’s Cannes hit Omar and Philip Goning’s Venice special jury prize winner The Police Officer’s Wife from The Match Factory.

Omar won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Billed as the first film fully-financed, cast and produced out of Palestine, the film follows three childhood friends who become ensnared in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with an Israeli intelligence officer after they join the Palestinian insurgency movement.

Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany and Waleed Zuaiter star.

The Police Officer’s Wife, Philip Groning’s follow up to acclaimed 2005 documentary Into the Silence is a scientifically precise, distinctively structured exploration of a family dealing with domestic violence. David Zimmerschied and Alexandra Finder star.

Both films are currently playing at the London Film Festival and will be released in the UK in the first half of 2013.

Soda managing director Eve Gabereau told ScreenDaily: “Soda Pictures is thrilled to be working with Philip Gröning again, after much acclaim and success with Into Great Silence.

“The Police Officer’s Wife is as perfectly crafted and as fully subversive, bolstered by emotional intensity within a tight-knit family.

“The Venice Special Jury Prize reinforces the film and director’s stature and vision”.

Gabereau said of Omar: “The film is much more than a story about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is a thrilling, Shakespearean tale that pushes the limits of human nature, love, hope, war, betrayal, and survival.

“We look forward to bringing it to audiences to engage with it both politically and cinematically. And with the film we carry on our interest in Middle Eastern films, having released Wadjda and The Lebanese Rocket Society this year.”

Other LFF films also on Soda’s upcoming slate are Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves and Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo.

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