Optimum Releasing have acquired UK rights to A Thousand Months and Since Otar Left from Fortissimo and Celluloid Dreams respectively.

Faouzi Bensaidi's A Thousand Months, selected for Un Certain Regard at this year's Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of Amina and her son Mehdi who live in the heart of the Atlas Mountains.

Julie Bertucelli's Since Otar Left won the Critics Week Grand Prize at this year's Cannes. It tells the story of a lie for love that changes the lives of three women of three different generations in today's Georgia.

Both films will form part of the Optimum's Discoveries Programme 2004 and will receive UK premieres at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Recent Optimum acquisitions include American Splendor, which will close the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage.

This adds to Optimum's slate for 2003 which includes China's Blind Shaft, Brazil's Man of the Year, Oliver Stone's Comandante, the Oscar winning Spirited Away and American indies xx/xy and Roger Dodger.