NEWS CANNESBRIEFS


G2 is Super excited about Gunn action comedy catch UK distributor G2 Pictures has scooped up theatrical rights to James Gunn’s crime action comedySuper, from HanWay Films. Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon star. “We’re a huge fan of the film and so are super excited about its release this summer,” said Nik Hedman, director of G2 Pictures.


Phase 4 celebrates Another Happy Day in the US Phase 4 Films has acquired all US rights from Mandalay Vision to writer-director Sam Levinson’s Sundance premiere Another Happy Day starring Ellen Barkin, Demi Moore, Ezra Miller, Kate Bosworth and Thomas Haden Church.


Wavelength snaps up Defurne’s Northsea, Texas John Flahive’s London-based sales and production outfit Wavelength Pictures has taken on sales for Belgian auteur Bavo Defurne’s coming-of-age storyNorthsea, Texas. The deal was confirmed by the film’s producer, Yves Verbraeken of Ostend-based Indeed Films. Kinepolis Film Distribution is handling the film’s Belgian release. Defurne is currently preparing a new feature, Souvenir, which is about a Eurovision song contest singer’s comeback.


Svensk Filmindustri seals five-year deal with MGM Scandinavian major Svensk Filmindustri (SF) has signed a five-year distribution agreement with MGM covering Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The deal includes both theatrical and DVD/ Blu-ray rights.


Nesbo calls shots for films of Headhunters, Snowman


BY MIKE GOODRIDGE Bestselling Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbo is visiting Cannes to pro- mote the film of his novel Head- hunters, which is being sold here by TrustNordisk. The movie about Norway’s most


successful job headhunter and art thief, was written as a standalone story and not part of Nesbo’s world-famous series following police detective Harry Hole. “I created a foundation to fight


illiteracy in the third world and decided that all the royalties from the book would go to it,” explained Nesbo. “So when they came to me with this huge offer for a movie deal, I said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’” Nesbo had no creative input


into the film apart from one con- tribution. “They had trouble with the last line of the movie — the punchline — so I wrote the last line of the movie,” he said. Selling movie rights to Harry


Hole, on the other hand, was not an easy decision for Nesbo. Two


Jo Nesbo


years ago, Working Title Films approached him about buying the seventh Hole bookThe Snowman. “Their opening line was that


they had madeFargo. I don’t know how they knew it was one of my favourites but I took the meeting and listened to them. I said that while I was flattered by their inter- est, I didn’t want to sell the rights to the series while I was still writ- ing them,” said Nesbo. “I was afraid a film would steal my hero, not just for me but for my readers. “Then they asked what it would take to sell the rights and I said I


would have to decide who was going to direct it or write the script. They explained it didn’t work that way in film production, and I said I was aware of that but was just tell- ing them what it would take. A year later they phoned back [to] do the deal on those terms.” Nesbo, an executive producer on


the project, would not disclose who is on his wish list to direct. Meanwhile the next Hole book,


The Phantom, is published in Nor- way next month, andHeadhunters opens on August 26. It screens here again tomorrow.


Minds Meet slips into Deep Dream


TLA Releasing has acquired UK and US rights for Baldvin Z’s award- winning teen drama Jitters (Oroi). The story is about young friends dealing with identity and sexuality. The Icelandic feature will screen at


the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June. TLA president Derek Curl said: “This fresh,Skins- esque ensemble drama fits perfectly within TLA’s catalogue.” Wendy Mitchell


Bavaria Film Partners is set for Fanning thriller


BY MARTIN BLANEY US director James Foley’s coming- of-age action thrillerFurious Angel is one of the first projects being lined up for production this year by the new Munich-based co-pro- duction/co-financing entity Bavaria Film Partners (BFP). BFP managing director


Markus Vogelbacher told Screen International the company has attracted a private investor for the $14m (¤10m) project, which is set to shoot in Germany from the end of 2011 as a co-production with Arena Multimedia, Light Brigade


Entertainment and Menz & Friends. Vogelbacher, Adam Krentz-


man, and Lowell Blank will pro- duce the film, written by Thane Swigart. Munich-based world sales company Atlas Film Inter- national will handle international distribution. Dakota Fanning is attached to


play the heroine Lilly, a 17-year-old student at a Catholic boarding school who has been trained by her adopted crime-boss father to be a killer. Meanwhile, this August will see


n 8 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival May 15, 2011


principal photography beginning on BFP’s first project, the $5.6m (¤4m) family entertainment film Schatzritter, which is being struc- tured as a Luxembourg-Germany co-production between Bernard Michaux’s Lucil Film, Munich- based NEOS Film and Screenvest. BFP was set up this February


specifically to attract international service-driven co-productions to Germany and to make use of Bavaria Film Studios’ extensive infrastructure of sound stages and post-production facilities outside of Munich.


BY GEOFFREY MACNAB Belgian production outfit Minds Meet, which has Blue Bird in the Quinzaine, is set to start produc- tion on Deep In A Dream Of You, Caroline Strubbe’s follow-up to 2009 feature Lost Persons Area, which screened in Cannes. The new film begins shooting


in Kent in the UK in the summer, with Anne Beresford of Artemisia Films as UK co-producer. The film picks up where Strubbe’s debut left off and moves the story on a decade. Zoltan Miklos Hajdu and Kimke Desart will once again star. Deep In A Dream will continue


shooting in Budapest later this year or in early 2012. The project has received support from the VAF (Flanders Audiovisual Fund). Also, Minds Meet is consider-


ing a self-releasing strategy for Quinzaine entry Blue Bird, the second feature by Gust Van Den Berghe. The company, run by Tomas Leyers and Strubbe, previ- ously pursued a similar strategy on Van Den Berghe’s Quinzaine 2010 selection, Little Baby Jesus Of Flandr.


BREAKINGNEWS For the latest film business news seeScreenDaily.com


ICO, ICA join forces in UK


BY WENDY MITCHELL The UK’s Independent Cinema Office (ICO) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) have struck a three-year partnership which will start in July. The partnership will seek to


establish a permanent home for “innovative, world-class, artisti- cally ambitious and risk-taking cinema from around the globe”. At London’s ICA , Cinema 1 will


show new releases and prominent themed programmes, while Cin- ema 2 will become dedicated to artists’ film and video work. Simon Ward, acting director,


ICO said: “With the ICO’s unique place in independent cinema exhi- bition, combining programming partnerships with many of this country’s most forward-thinking independent cinemas, an enviable track record of bringing more than 200 features into distribution and an international reputation for its audience development and train- ing initiatives, we relish working with the ICA which we both believe feels like a natural fit.”


EAO workshop bridges film and television


The European Audiosvisual Observatory (EAO) will host a workshop today looking at the relationship between film and television. Titled ‘Cinema And Television:


Falling In Love Again’, the session will include EAO presentations on film scheduling on traditional and pay-TV channels, the comparative success of film on TV in Europe and the US, broadcasters’ legal obligations to invest in film funds, the evolution of exploitation windows and audience studies relating to the subject of film on television. The conference will include a


panel discussion on the same topics, to be moderated by SACD director Pascal Rogard, chairman of the European Producers’ Club Martin Moszkowicz and representatives of public and private broadcasters. ‘Cinema And Television:


Falling In Love Again’ runs today, 3pm-5pm, Palais Des Festivals. Andreas Wiseman


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