Wellspring Media has picked up US rights to two European films - Alexander Sokurov's acclaimed Cannes title Russian Ark and Bille Eltringham's UK DV thriller This Is Not A Love Song. Both films were sold by Paris-based sales outfit Celluloid Dreams. Russian Ark is slated for a release before the end of this year, while This Is Not A Love Song will open in 2003.

Russian Ark, shot on digital video and transferred to film, is the first full-length, single-take, continuous uncut steadycam feature film. Shot in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, it is the story of a 19th Century French diplomat and a contemporary Russian film-maker who are mysteriously transported back in time to the 1700s to the fabled Winter Palace.

Scripted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty), This Is Not A Love Song follows the story of two petty criminals who mistakenly kill the young daughter of a farmer and are relentlessly pursued across the countryside of northern England by both the police and a posse of local farmers intent on revenge.

Wellspring, formerly known as Winstar TV & Video, has recently acquired Delphine Gleize's Carnage, which played in Directors Fortnight at Cannes this year, Claude Miller's Betty Fisher et Autres Histoires and Margaret Cho concert film The Notorious CHO, the last two of which are currently on release.