Sources close to Thanks For Sharing were confident the comedic drama might generate the second major US deal of the festival on Sunday night (9) as buyers and sellers waited for the acquisitions avalanche to come.

Focus Features’ $2.5m deal for US rights to The Place Beyond The Pines remained the sole confirmed acquisition of the festival heading into the evening, although there was a sense that the courtship of the past couple of days might be about to get serious on a number of titles.

“Sunday’s the watershed,” said one domestic representative. Apart from Stuart Blumberg’s Thanks For Sharing, which WME Global and UTA represent, interest continued to swirl around What Maisie Knew – another WME title – and the UTA pair of Imogene and Frances Ha.

Anticipated Sunday evening screenings included CAA’s Writers from Josh Boone and UTA’s Mr. Pip, marking Shrek creator Andrew Adamson’s foray into independent filmmaking.

CAA was talking to buyers about the Midnight Madness entry Aftershock, which has reportedly captured the attention of Dimension, and the sales team anticipated a positive response to Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, the vampire tale it handles jointly with WME.

Gersh was in talks with buyers on The Brass Teapot and Inescapable while ICM Partners continued to field interest in documentary How To Make Money Selling Drugs and screened Brian De Palma’s Passion on Sunday afternoon. Preferred Content’s Midnight Madness entry Hellbenders was also tracking well ahead of its screening.

 

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