ChrisBlackwell's Palm Pictures has acquired US and Caribbean rights to MichaelHaneke's Time Of The Wolf and North American rights to Lou Ye's Purple Butterfly. Both films played in official selectionat this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The distributorplans limited theatrical releases followed by DVD/video roll-out for bothtitles in 2004, with Time Of The Wolf opening under the Palm Pictures label and PurpleButterfly going outunder the Arthouse Films banner.

Palm Pictures'head of acquisitions and production David Koh and head of theatricaldistribution Ryan Werner negotiated the Time Of The Wolf deal with Daniela Elstner of Les FilmsDes Losange. Koh negotiated for Purple Butterfly with Wild Bunch's Carole Baraton.

Time Of TheWolf traces society'spost-apocalyptic struggle for survival as families take to the countrysidefollowing an unspecified disaster. Isabelle Huppert, who won the best actressaward in Cannes 2001 for her role in Haneke's The Piano Teacher, stars along with Olivier Gourmet andBeatrice Dalle.

Purple Butterfly is a romantic saga set during the Japaneseoccupation of China in the 1930s and stars Zhang Ziyi, whose credits include CrouchingTiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and RushHour 2.