UK-France sales outfit Alief has acquired two titles playing at this year’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (POFF, November 3-19).
It has picked up Boaz Yakin’s Once Again (for the very first time) ahead of its world premiere in competition at POFF.
US filmmaker Yakin’s previous credits include Max and as a co-writer on Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall. This is Alief’s second feature with Yakin, following their partnership on 2020 title Aviva.
Jeroboam Bozeman and Mecca ‘Meccamorphosis’ Verdell star in this hip-hop infused surreal fantasy, about a legendary street dancer and a young spoken word poet who reflect on their lives and their challenging relationship, through dreams, dance battles, rap battles and memories.
Yakin produces alongside Jonathan Gray and Nicholas Gray, with co-producers Jason Cacioppo, Aleksa Kurbalija and Hilary Stabb.
The company has also acquired Kaveh Daneshmand’s Endless Summer Syndrome for world sales excluding the Czech Republic, ahead of the film’s world premiere in the First Feature section at POFF.
Daneshmand is an Iranian filmmaker, based in Prague. Endless Summer Syndrome received the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Works in Progress award in July 2022. The drama follows the mother of two adoptees who is tipped off about the possible affair her husband may be having with one of their children.
The France-Czech Republic co-production is produced by Daneshmand alongside Turkey’s Gem Deger through Prague-based Libra Rising, France’s Eva and Cédric Larvoire, plus Czech-Spanish producer Jordi Niubó of i/o post. Support came from Prague Film School, Studio Bystrouška, Parasound, The Lab Studios and Czech Film Center.
The cast includes Deger, Sophie Colon, Matheo Capelli and Frédérika Milano.
“Endless Summer Syndrome reflects on sensitive topics such as adoption, immigration, sexual identity and incest in the context of a modern and open-minded family whose integrity is threatened by an inconvenient phone call,” said the director.
“A portrait of a seemingly ideal, loving and multicultural family and its collapse, the story questions family bonds from a much-avoided point of view and pushes its characters to an irreversible edge.”
No comments yet