'La Palisiada'

Source: IFFR/VIATEL

‘La Palisiada’

Sales rights to Ukrainian filmmaker Philip Sotnychenko’s feature debut and Rotterdam 2023 award winner La Palisiada have been acquird by UK outfit Reason8.

La Palisiada won the Fipresci award at last year’s festival, and was nominated in the European Discovery section at the European Film Awards.

The feature shot predominantly in Kyiv in 2021 and is set in 1996, five months before the moratorium on the death penalty. It follows two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, as they investigate a murder of their colleague.

Cast includes Andrii Zhurba, Novruz Hikmet, Valeria Oleinikova and Oleksandr Parkhomenko. Producers are Halyna Kryvorchuk, Sashko Chubko and Valeria Sochyvets.

Development support came from the Ukrainian cultural fund and production support from the Ukrainian film fund. Sweden’s Goteborg film fund provided post-production support.

Reason8’s European Film Market (EFM) slate also includes Rotterdam premiere Yohanna, an Indonesia-UK-Italy co-production that explores child labour in Indonesia and Belgian drama Skunk, about a troubled teenager who goes to great lengths to break from his past, starring Thibaud Dooms.