28/02/2006

"A very well organized market that paid a lot of attention to Italian titles.” This is what Adriana Chiesa (head of Adriana Chiesa Enterprises) had to say about the European Film Market (EFM) of the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, which certainly provided an opportunity for a series of successful deals, a short list of which follows.

The winners
The Golden Bear winner of the 56th edition of the festival, Grbavica [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Barbara Albert
interview: Jasmila Zbanic
film profile] – the debut feature by Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic, which was co-produced by several European countries – was acquired for Italy by Istituto Luce. Before the awards were announced, Fandango bought Italian rights to Road to Guantanamo [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, which went on to win the Silver Bear.

Best sellers
During the EFM, international sales company Wild Bunch sold the rights to the highly anticipated new film by Nanni Moretti, The Caiman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Nanni Moretti
film profile], to France, (Bac Films), the UK (Optimum Releasing), Switzerland, Benelux, Greece (Rosebud Motion Pictures Enterprises), Canada, Portugal (Atalanta Filmes) and Scandinavia (Triangelfilm). The film was sold essentially sight unseen: all that is known about it is that it will be released in Italy on March 24 and that an 82-second trailer of the film has been screening for several days now, featuring close-ups of the actors and the song Ya Rayah, sung by Khaled, Rachid Taha and Faudel (the music is similar to that which accompanied Moretti on his Vespa in Dear Diary ). Crime Novel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michele Placido
film profile] also fared well, and was sold by TF1 International to France (where Warner Bros will release it on March 22) and to Icon in the UK.

Other sales
Intramovies announced that it sold the rights to German/Chilean co-production En la cama, by Matias Bize, to Spain, Benelux and Singapore. The Italian exporter also sold Out of End (Keller – Teenage Wasteland) to US distributor Picture This. The film is the debut feature by Eva Urthaler and is a co-production between Austria, Germany and Italy (Verdecchi Film). Cineuropa dedicated a making of to this film, whose Italian title will be Cantina.

Minerva Pictures Group sold the home video and television rights to several titles from its library at the EFM. The company, headed by Gianluca Curti, sold two packages of horror films to the Middle East, as well as the film Lycantropos to Thailand, Greece and the US. They also sold the psychological thriller Hate2O, by Alex Infascelli, to Greece, South Korea, Hungary, Germany and the Middle East, along with five films by Fernando Di Leo to US company Image.

The acquisitions follow

(Translated from Italian)