Mark Lindsay’s New York-based sales company Kimmel International has bulked up its Cannes slate with international rights to the espionage thriller Trust starring Kiefer Sunderland, Billy Crudup and Guy Pearce.

Robert Edwards is scheduled to start shooting in Los Angeles this autumn. The story follows two FBI counter-intelligence agents in 1969 Los Angeles who are stunned when a fellow American walks in and confesses he has been spying for the Soviets and volunteers to turn double agent.

Greg Shapiro who produced Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker and is in production on Bruce Robinson’s The Rum Diary is serving as producer. CAA is handling North American rights.

“The world of Trust is one in which no-one – not the characters themselves, and certainly not the audience – is ever quite sure who is on the level and who isn’t, or who is being double-crossed and who is doing the double-crossing,” Edwards said.

The director is currently adapting John LeCarre’s novel The Night Manager for Paramount and Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B.

Kimmel International will also introduce the drama Hesher starring Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rainn Wilson, Piper Laurie, John Carroll Lynch and Devin Brochu. Spenser Susser was due to begin shooting this week in Los Angeles from a screenplay he co-wrote with David Michod.

The story centers on a 13-year-old boy and a twenty-something anarchist who walks into the youngster’s life and helps him deal with loss, love, bullies and the difficulties of growing up. Portman is producing the film with Lucy Cooper, Matt Weaver and Scott Prisand.

Kimmel International’s slate includes Mark Ruffalo’s drama and feature directorial debut Sympathy For Delicious starring Christopher Thornton, Ruffalo, Orlando Bloom, Juliette Lewis and Laura Linney, as well as the inspirational drama An Invisible Sign starring Jessica Alba, and the comedy Paper Man with Jeff Daniels, Emma Stone, Lisa Kudrow and Ryan Reynolds.

The roster continues with the comedy All’s Faire In Love starring Christina Ricci, Owen Benjamin, Matthew Lillard, Ann-Margret and Cedric the Entertainer, supernatural horror Don’t Look Up from Fruit Chan, and Gregor Jordan’s thriller Unthinkable with Samuel L Jackson, Carrie-Anne Moss and Michael Sheen.