VCL Film + Medien has secured a new French distributor for its trio of forthcoming Woody Allen pictures and confirmed Spanish and Italian releases.

Jean Labadie's Bac Films, which has released many previous Allen films, will distribute the films in France. VCL, which has until now not identified the other "attached" buyers has now confirmed here that Lauren Films has also bought them for Spain and Mediaset for Italy

"We always had a buyer in France," explained VCL chief Datty Ruth. "We had a written deal with Flach Pyramide, which they could not complete. We now have a deal with Bac."

The films were picked up by VCL in early 2000 after Allen separated from producing partner Jean Doumanian. The $25m a picture trio are backed by and will be released in the US by DreamWorks SKG and were offered to international financiers for the rest of the world.

VCL, which has spent much of the last year expanding away from its German video roots, committed to the films in the expectation that distributors in France, Italy and Spain were already attached. This minimised its sales risk and gave it German-speaking rights at a cost much lower than the company would have had to pay on the open market. For other territories VCL appointed the UK's Capitol Films as its sales agent.