Berlin-based fledgling sales agent Films Boutique has picked up international rights for Austrian filmmaker Thomas Woschitz's Universalove which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last night.

The co-production by Austria's Kranzelbinder Gabriele Production (KGP) with Luxembourg's Red Lion, Serbia's Art & Popcorn and the donaufestival.at was shot on location in Belgrade, Brooklyn, Luxembourg, Marseilles, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo with a cast including Anica Dobra, Dusan Askovic, Rachel Dorfman, Magda Gomes and Kyoichi Komoto.

The global love story in six episodes by Woschitz in collaboration with the band Naked Lunch developed a new kind of 'choral music film' in which pop songs take on a narrative function, turning the inner world of the protagonists, their thoughts and stories, into music and lyrics.

A 'work in progress' version of the film was shown at this year's Donaufestival and a newly edited version of Universalove has now been prepared for the screening in the Vanguard section at Toronto. It will be followed by another presentation at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal in October.

Films Boutique was launched at the beginning of this year and made its market premiere at Cannes in May with three films: Directors' Fortnight titles Claire Simon's God's Offices, Francesco Munzi's The Rest Of Night, and Khalid Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas's I Want To See which was premiered in Un Certain Regard.

I Want To See and The Rest Of Night are having their North American premieres in Toronto's Visions and Contemporary World Cinema programmes, respectively.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily.com, the company's Jean-Christophe Simon said that Films Boutique will also handle world sales for Berlin filmmaker Angela Schanelec's next feature film Paris Orly, which is currently in post-production.