Malika

Source: Lazy Sunday

‘Malika’

EXCLUSIVE: Cappu Films has picked up world sales rights to Kazakh family drama Malika, which world premiered in Busan’s inaugural Competition section on Sunday.

The Hong Kong-based sales and distribution company secured the title shortly before Busan and has begun initial talks with buyers at ACFM, the market which runs parallel to the festival in South Korea. It will be further showcased at TIFFCOM in Tokyo at the end of October. Cappu will handle international sales except for Russia and CIS.

The film follows 12-year-old Malika, whose carefree life is shaken when she learns that if her divorced mother Roza remarries, her father will gain custody of her, as Islamic tradition dictates. Malika faces the dilemma of disrupting this new marriage or sacrificing everything to ensure her mother is happy.

The cast is led by Izabella Khampieva in the title role while Marena Kharsieva plays her mother. It marks the feature directorial debut of Kazakhstan-based Uvarova, who also wrote the screenplay with Milana Misieva.

Filmed on locations across Kazakhstan — including Almaty, Issyk village, Lake Issyk, and Astana — the feature is produced by Artem Vasilyev, Ivan Golomovzyuk, Alexander Plotnikov and Pavel Doreuli, with production companies Lazy Sunday, Studio Metrafilms Moldova, Dear Silence and Anykey.

Uvarova studied directing at the St. Petersburg Institute of Film and Television before working as first assistant director with acclaimed directors Aleksey German Jr. and Aleksey Mizgiryov. Her short The Warm Place premiered in competition at Les Arcs in 2023.

Cappu was founded by independent filmmaker Janice Woo in 2018 and has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Los Angeles. Its slate of titles includes action crime drama Fox Hunt, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Olga Kurylenko; Josh Radnor’s comedy All Happy Families; Karlovy Vary drama Promise, I’ll Be Fine; and Chinese action feature Assassin, which is set for release in North America by Film Movement under its Omnibus Entertainment label.

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