Italy's Lucky Red is once again proving its foresight thanks to a string of Cannes acquisitions and co-production deals.

Headed by Andrea Occhipinti, Lucky Red has boarded Comme Une Image, the new film from bittersweet comedy duo Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri It features a number of unlikely characters united by a fascination for power. Lucky Red, which co-produced the pair's previous hit The Taste Of Others, joins producer French A4. The Euros 12m film will be sold by Studiocanal.

Lucky Red is also involved as the Italian partner in La Femme De Gilles, an intense drama by Une Liaison Pornographique-director Frederic Fontaine. The Euros 5.3m film about a woman's desperate to win back the affections of her husband whom she suspects of having an affair with her sister.

It stars Sur Mes Levres' Emmanuelle Devos. Other co-producers include Artemis of Belgium, Luxembourg's Samsa Film, Nord-Ouest Liaisions Cinematographiques and Switzerland's Fama Films. Pan-European funding organisation Eurimages will also finance.

"We have to become involved further and further upstream in film-making as Italy is a very competitive market for films," said Occhipinti.

On the acquisition front, Lucky Red bought Italian rights to Roger Michell's hot Directors' Fortnight film The Mother from Renaissance Films; from StudioCanal Confidences Trop Intimes, a psychology comedy by Patrice Leconte that is now shooting. And it completed the acquisition of post-apartheid story The Country Of My Skull from The Works, which it started negotiating at the AFM.

Yesterday, it also wrapped up Italian rights to Mr Ibrahim (aka Les Fleurs Du Koran, aka Momo). The film, by French director Francois Dupeyron, stars Omar Sharif as an elderly Arab grocer who develops an enduring friendship with a 12 year-old Jewish boy. The film is produced and sold by boutique operation ARP and was sold in many territories earlier this week to Sony Pictures Classics.