03/06/2014 - New Swedish distributor Edge Entertainment, which will start releasing this summer, adds Bolshoi Babylon, Camp X-Ray and Palo Alto to its catalogue

Launched earlier this year by veteran Swedish distributor Ignas Scheynius, Stockholm-based Nordic distribution company Edge Entertainment picked up three titles while shopping at its first Cannes International Film Festival: UK director Nick Read’s Bolshoi Babylon, and US filmmakers Peter Sattler’s Camp X-Ray and Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto.

“Edge has started in a great manner, and we look forward to adding new titles to our line-up for 2015 and beyond,” said Scheynius, the company’s chairman of the board. In 1998, Scheynius – a co-founder of the Stockholm International Film Festival – set up the Millennium Media Group with partner CG Anderson, which he headed until it was sold to Turner Broadcasting System in 2010. He left his position as Turner’s managing director Nordic & Baltic last year.

Edge had previously acquired Argentinian director Lucía Puenzo’s The German Doctor [+see also:
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film profile], which won the Golden Bear and the international critics’ FIPRESCI Award at last year’s Berlinale. The company will start releasing this summer.

In his search for “director-driven features that make a difference and add something to the Scandinavian marketplace,” Scheynius signed for Bolshoi Babylon from Altitude Films, described as an exclusive peek behind the curtain of Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet. Read’s documentary of the scandal-riddled company, marred by stories of corruption and backstabbing, was produced by Oscar-winning producer Simon Chinn (Searching for Sugar Man [+see also:
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film profile] in 2009).

Premiered at Sundance and with Kristen Stewart in the lead, Sattler’s feature debut, Camp X-Ray (from Rezo Films), follows a young female guard in a military detention centre, who begins a relationship with one of the inmates; also a first feature, Coppola’s Palo Alto (From Pathé International), based on James Franco’s short stories, has also toured Telluride, Toronto and Venice.