Terence Davies' 'Sunset Song' sold to Spain's Festival Films

Bilbao-based Festival Films has picked up the Spanish distribution rights to Terence Davies’ Sunset Song from Fortissimo Films.

The period drama, starring Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur), Agyness Deyn (Pusher) and Kevin Guthrie (The Legend Of Barney Thomson), will receive its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) in Special Presentations.

Davies’ long-gestating passion project is an adaptation of the 1932 classic Scottish novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, about a farmer’s daughter in early 20th-century Scotland facing a series of hardships.

Davies has frequently played in Toronto, starting with Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988 and most recently with The Deep Blue Sea in 2011, which Festival Films previously released in Spain.

Sunset Song is also playing in competition at San Sebastian (Sept 18-26).

Metrodome previously picked up UK and Irish rights (excluding TV, which area owned by the BBC) and is planning to release in Q4 2015.

The latest deal was negotiated between Fortissimo Films’ Nicole Mackey, evp of international sales, and Festival Films’ operations manager Suso Gómez-Cambronero.

Festival Films has previously released such British independent films including Tyrannosaur and Shane Meadows’ Somers Town and This Is England. More recently, Festival Films released the Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi vampire mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows.

Sunset Song is a UK/Luxembourg co-production presented by the BFI Film Fund, Film Fund Luxembourg, Creative Scotland and BBC Scotland.

The film is produced by Hurricane Films’ Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos, Iris Productions’ Nicolas Steil and executive produced by SellOutPictures’ Bob Last.