K5 International has secured the rights to Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, screening this week at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The film, which recently won the Sundance Directing Awards for US Documentary and the Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award at Full Frame, is a New York love story that explores the 40-year marriage between renowned “boxing” painter Ushio Shinohara and artist Noriko.

In a joint statement, K5 co-founders Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur said: “The film gives an extraordinary insight into the lives of these two forces of artistic nature and we’re proud to be taking it out across the world to distributors who we know will fall in love with it just like we did.”

RADiUS-TWC acquired the US rights with a release date set for mid-August. King Records will distribute in Japan with Parco, and Madman in Australia.

Brooklyn-based Heinzerling has worked on several feature-length films for HBO, including three Emmy Award-winning documentaries. He was a field producer on the Emmy Award-winning HBO doc series 24/7.  Other cinematography credits include the forthcoming feature documentary Town Hall for PBS.  Cutie and the Boxer marks his directorial feature film debut. 

Producers are Lydia Dean Pilcher, Patrick Burns and Sierra Pettengill. Executive producer is Kiki Miyake.

The film is an Ex-Lion Tamer presentation and a Cine Mosaic production funded by Cinereach, the San Francisco Film Society, Tribeca Film Institute, and The Jerome Foundation.

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