Gary Hamilton's Arclight Films has acquired worldwide sales rights to Moonlight, the next film by Paula van der Oest whose last film Zus & Zo is one of the five best foreign language film nominees this year.

Moonlight, which Hamilton says will screen at the Cannes market this year, is van der Oest's fourth feature and her first in the English language. A romantic thriller about a 13 year-old girl who falls in love with an Afghan drug dealer, Moonlight recently won the youth jury award at the Netherlands Film Festival. It stars 13 year-old Laurien Van den Broeck, Jemma Redgrave and Andrew Howard.

The film is produced by Emjay Rechsteiner of Staccato Films, whose other credits include Pauline Et Paulette and the upcoming The Emperor's Wife. Co-producers on Moonlight are the UK's Spice Factory, Delux Studios and Peppermint, which originally held sales rights but lost them following its insolvency.

Arclight has a prolific slate of films at present including several from Spice Factory and its founders Michael Cowan and Jason Piette. They include Head In The Clouds starring Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz, Ann Turner's thriller Irresistible and UK musical romance Bollywood Queen.