EXCLUSIVE: Paradise City Sales, formerly Memento International, has acquired international sales rights to Dutch filmmaker Mees Peijnenburg’s second feature A Family, starring Carice van Houten and Pieter Embrechts, ahead of the film’s world premiere in the Generations section of next month’s Berlin International Film Festival.
Told from two different perspectives, the portrait of a family in turmoil co-stars rising talents Finn Vogels and Celeste Holsheimer as siblings caught in the crossfire of their parents’ divorce.
A Family is produced by Iris Otten, Nathalie van der Burg, and Sander van Meurs for the Netherlands’ Juliet at Pupkin and is co-produced by Michiel Dhont and Lukas Dhont for Belgium’s The Reunion. Cinéart will release the film in Benelux.
Peijnenburg, who co-wrote the script with Bastiaan Kroeger, called the film “very personal and important to me”.
“For a very long time, I’ve wanted to make a film about a family fracturing and how it affects all family members, seen from different perspectives. It is a film about unconditional love, resilience, heartache and above all, about emotional safety.”
Peijnenburg’s first feature, Paradise Drifters, screened at the Rotterdam and Berlin film festivals in 2020 and won a Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival.
Paradise City Sales head of sales Alexandre Moreau cited the film’s “inventive mirrored structure that places the children at the heart of the story”. He described it as “a uniquely crafted take on divorce dramas, turning heartbreak into a tender rediscovery of love and hope that will deeply resonate with audiences”.
The film joins Paradise City’s sales slate that also includes Moshe Rosenthal’s Tell Me Everything, which premieres in Sundance this month, and upcoming titles Martin Provost’s Love Lessons and Warwick Thornton’s Wolfram.
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