Visit Films has acquired international sales rights to Amos Gitai’s Berlinale Special selection Shikun and will kick off talks with buyers at the EFM next month.
The Israeli film is inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s allegorical play Rhinoceros, and dramatises the emergence of intolerance and totalitarianism through a series of theatrical episodes that take place in a single Israeli building, the Shikun.
Among this diverse group of people of different origins and languages, some turn into rhinoceroses, while others resist.
The ensemble cast includes Irène Jacob (The Double Life Of Véronique), Hanna Laslo (Free Zone), Yael Abecassis (Sacred), Bahira Ablassi (Laila In Haifa), Menashe Noy (Gett), Pini Mittelman (Rabin, The Last Day), Atallah Tannous, Minas Qarawany, Amnon Rechter, Naama Preis, Yelena Yaralova and Zvi Szkolnik.
Gitai produced alongside Laurent Truchot (Promised Land), Ilan Moskovitch (Apollonian Story), Catherine Dussart (The Missing Picture), Shuki Friedman (Tel Aviv Stories), and Alex Iordachescu (Lullaby To My Father).
Jeremy Thomas is executive producer on the official Israel-France-Switzerland co-production.
Gitai’s directing credits include Cannes selections Sacred, Kippour, Kedma and Free Zone), and Venice entries Berlin Jerusalem, Eden, Alila, Promised Land, Ana Arabia, and Rabin, The Last Day).
Gitai said, “Shikun is a metaphor asking: how can we keep our humanity in an overwhelming savagery? How can the arts dialogue with the present talking to us without preaching? How can cinema become again a way to conserve memories challenging our scope? We are delighted to participate in this year’s Berlinale and I invite you all to work with me as interpreters.”
Additionally, Visit Films recently acquired international sales rights to Morrisa Maltz’s The Unknown Country starring Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone (Killers Of The Flower Moon).
The story follows a grieving young woman on a solitary road trip through the American Midwest toward the Texas-Mexico border.
Maltz (Ingrid) wrote the screenplay and created the story in collaboration with Glastone, Lainey Bearkiller Shangreaux and Vanara Taing.
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