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BERLINALE 2017 Market / France

French firms’ sales and other announcements at the EFM: a barometer check

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- BERLIN 2017: An overview of the major deals and main novelties announced by the French international sales agents hard at work at Berlin’s EFM

French firms’ sales and other announcements at the EFM: a barometer check
A Fantastic Woman by Sebastián Lelio

At the European Film Market of the 67th Berlin Film Festival, the home stretch is in sight for the myriad French international sales agents in action there, which have spent the last week making a raft of announcements. Standing out among the most sought-after titles for buyers are the competition entry A Fantastic Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Chile’s Sebastian Lelio, which has been sold by Paris-based company Funny Balloons to Sony Pictures Classics for the USA and to Ad Vitam for France, The Death of Stalin [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Scottish director Armando Iannucci (a Quad Films production starring such names as Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor and Olga Kurylenko), which has been bought from Gaumont by IFC Films for North America, and the thriller Hard Powder by Norway’s Hans Petter Moland (an adaptation of In Order of Disappearance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans Petter Moland
film profile
]
, which is due to start shooting in March, toplined by Liam Neeson), which will be distributed by its producer, StudioCanal, in the UK, Germany, France and Australia/New Zealand, and which the firm has pre-sold to a slew of territories at Berlin (including Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, Poland, China and Latin America).

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Lucrative deals have also been struck with several titles in post-production, such as Racer and the Jailbird [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Roskam
film profile
]
by Belgium’s Michael R Roskam (see the article), which Wild Bunch has sold to new US distribution outfit Neon, among others, and Thelma [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eili Harboe
interview: Joachim Trier
film profile
]
by Norway’s Joachim Trier (see the article), which Memento Films International has sold for more than 20 territories (including Italy, the Benelux, Poland, the former Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, the Baltic states, Portugal, Turkey, Taiwan and Japan). We should also point out that Memento Films International has sold My Happy Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon G…
film profile
]
by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross (co-produced with Georgia and Germany by Paris-based Arizona Films), which was unveiled in competition at Sundance and was screened in the Forum section of Berlin, to Netflix for the entire world (excluding co-producing countries).

Pyramide Films International finally chose Kino Lorber for the US distribution of The Wound [+see also:
film review
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]
by John Trengove, which opened the Panorama at Berlin, following its premiere at Sundance. And the French company has also sold Moka [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
by Swiss director Frédéric Mermoud to Film Movement for North America. Meanwhile, TF1 Studio has announced a plethora of pre-sales for Knock [+see also:
trailer
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]
by Lorraine Lévy (with Omar Sy in the lead role). 

As for documentaries, Wide House has topped up the very impressive sales figures for its Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Raoul Peck, and Les Films du Losange has kicked off sales for the film The Paris Opera by Switzerland’s Jean-Stéphane Bron (acquired by Gaga for Japan, among other deals), currently in post-production.

Moving onto the announcements, Europacorp created quite the buzz with Léa Seydoux, who has joined Matthias Schoenaerts and Colin Firth in the cast of Kursk by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, the shoot for which will kick off on 18 April (a film being produced and sold by the studio owned by Luc Besson, who is gearing up to unleash his blockbuster Valerian [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
in theatres in July). For its part, StudioCanal has revealed that it will co-produce and distribute in Germany Roads [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Sebastian Schipper (who shot to fame in 2015 with the sublime, Berlinale-awarded Victoria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sebastian Schipper
film profile
]
) and The Silent Revolution [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
]
by Lars Kraume (popular at Locarno with The People vs. Fritz Bauer [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lars Kraume
film profile
]
).

We should also point out that French distributor Ad Vitam has revealed that it will executive-produce The Summer House [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
film profile
]
 by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Gaumont has officially launched pre-sales for the titles in post-production Barbara by Mathieu Amalric (see the news) and Bright Weakness by Guillaume Gallienne, StudioCanal has done likewise for Gauguin by Edouard Deluc (starring Vincent Cassel – see the article) and the animated film Le grand méchant renard et autres contes by Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert, and Other Angle Pictures has got stuck into pre-selling Nos patriotes [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Gabriel Le Bomin

Sales agent Alpha Violet has added the project Fugue [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
film profile
]
by Poland’s Agnieszka Smoczynska (who rose to fame at Sundance last year with The Lure [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
film profile
]
) to its line-up, whereas Le Pacte will co-produce and handle international sales for Monos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Alejandro Landes (who made a name for himself in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2011 with his feature debut, Porfirio [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), a film also being produced by Colombia, Argentina, the Netherlands and Germany. Lastly, Indie Sales will be selling the Russian 3D space adventure movie Salyut 7 by Klim Shipenko, which is presently in post-production, Loco Films has included Paths [+see also:
trailer
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]
by Germany’s Chris Miera on its slate, which was world-premiered at the Berlinale, in the Perspective Deutsches Kino section, and New Morning Films is selling the Swedish film The Ex-Wife [+see also:
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]
by Katja Wik (which was world-premiered in competition at Göteborg and will be released in national theatres on Friday).

TF1 Studio, which is selling the project Rudolph Nureyev by Rodolphe Marconi, the shoot for which will kick off in late June, has announced that Marine Vacth has joined fellow cast members ballet dancer Vasily Tkachenko and Spaniard Alex Brendemuhl. And the Berlinale’s European Film Market has also seen the return of the public France TV Distribution group to the international sales sector, as it is pre-selling The Red Collar [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Jean Becker, starring Nicolas Duvauchelle and François Cluzet.

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(Translated from French)

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