Paris-based sales company Wide Management has picked up international rights for German filmmaker Jan Bonny's feature debut Counterparts (Gegenuber) which has been selected for this year's Directors' Fortnight sidebar in Cannes.

The drama about domestic violence between a primary school teacher and her policeman husband features Viktoria Trauttmannsdorff (whose credits include Christian Petzold's Ghosts and Sandra Nettelbeck's Mostly Martha) and Matthias Brandt (who played Gunter Guillaume in the TV drama Im Schatten Der Macht about the spy affair which led to the resignation of his father Willy Brandt as Chancellor in 1974).

Counterparts is the second in-house production by the Cologne-based outfit Heimatfilm whose Low Profile (Falscher Bekenner) by Christoph Hochhäusler was selected for Cannes' Un Certain Regard in 2005. The film was produced as part of the 'Sixpack' initiative between the Filmstiftung NRW and public broadcaster WDR, who each contributed half of the Euros 800,000 budget, and is Bonny's graduation film from Cologne's Academy for Media Arts.