On the eve of this year's Cannes Film Festival, Leipzig-based Kinowelt International has concluded an agreement with the Munich production house Bioskop Film to handle the marketing of its film library, including such German cinema classics as Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta's The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum, Reinhard Hauff's Stammheim and von Trotta's The German Sisters.

Speaking to ScreenDaily.com, Stelios Ziannis, Kinowelt International's head of world sales, explained that Bioskop's library of some 40 titles also includes films by Louise Malle such as Lacombe Lucien. In several cases, Kinowelt International will only be handling the German speaking rights for certain titles as the international rights are held by other sales agents. However, there are a number of films where Kinowelt will be handling rights for all territories.

Ziannis pointed that, with this latest addition of the Bioskop library to the existing rights to films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Percy Adlon, Michael Verhoeven, Helma Sanders-Brahms and Alexander Kluge, Kinowelt will now have the most comprehensive back catalogue of German films from 1970 to 2000.

Commenting on the deal with Kinowelt, Bioskop's founder Eberhard Junkersdorf said: 'We are pleased about the agreement with Kinowelt, which combines a professional handling with the love for German cinematic heritage. The films of Bioskop are in good hands and good company at Kinowelt.'

Ziannis added that he will also be coming to Cannes with a rough cut of the latest production by Percy Adlon, the documentary Orbela's People about a Masai family in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.

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