EXCLUSIVE: Fortissimo Films has picked up worldwide rights outside North America to Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange, starring Alfred Molina and Michael Gambon.

Scheduled to start shooting this summer, the film follows a gay couple (Gambon and Molina) in New York, who wed after 28 years, but are forced to live in separate apartments when the younger one loses his job.

Sachs will also serve as a producer on the film, along with Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy of New York-based production company Parts & Labor and Lucas Joaquin (Beasts Of The Southern Wild).

The deal for world rights, negotiated by Fortissimo’s Winnie Lau, marks the company’s third major acquisition of an English-language project in the past week. On the eve of the Cannes market, Fortissimo swooped on Sue Brooks’ Driving Back To Dubbo and Hal Hartley’s Ned Rifle.

“Our current new slate demonstrates the wealth of original and ground-breaking English-language independent films, which are a perfect fit for Fortissimo’s global positioning and line-up,” said Fortissimo chairman Michael J. Werner.  

Fortissimo’s slate also includes Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam’s Cannes competition title Borgman and Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout, which plays in Midnight Screenings.