Buyers hot for political thriller; deals with UK, France, Scandinavia, Benelux.

Celluloid Dreams has sold German political thriller The Year Of The Snake, written and directed by Dennis Gansel, to the UK, Scandinavia and Benelux (G2), France (Bac), Middle East (Shooting Stars) and Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam (PT Parkit).

Gansel’s English-language debut is about a journalist who gets caught up in a Moscow terrorist plot while investigating the Russian secret service. Universal Pictures International had already taken German-speaking territories.

Kasia Smutniak, Mark Ivanir, Moritz Bleibtreu, Max Riemelt and Rade Serbedzija star.

Celluloid Dreams is screening the $9m-budgeted thriller at the AFM.