MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 2012


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TIFF prepares for deals avalanche


BY JEREMY KAY Sources close to Thanks For Shar- ing were confident the comedic drama might generate the second major US deal of the festival on Sunday night as buyers and sellers waited for the acquisitions ava- lanche to arrive. Focus Features’ $2.5m deal for


US rights to The Place Beyond The Pines remained the sole confi rmed acquisition of the festival heading into the evening, though there was a sense the courtship of the past couple of days might be about to get serious on a number of titles. “Sunday’s the watershed,” said


Sarah Polley


Midnight Madness entry After- shock, which has reportedly cap- tured the attention of Dimension, and the sales team anticipated a positive response to Neil Jordan’s Byzantium, the vampire tale it han- dles jointly with WME. Gersh was in talks with buyers


Thanks For Sharing


one domestic representative. Apart from Stuart Blumberg’s Thanks For Sharing, which WME Global and UTA represent, interest built around What Maisie Knew — another WME title — and the UTA pair of Imogene and Frances Ha.


Anticipated Sunday evening


screenings included CAA’s Writers from Josh Boone and UTA’s Mr Pip, marking Shrek creator Andrew Adamson’s foray into independent fi lm-making. CAA was talking to buyers about


Sierra/Affinity goes Way, Way Back


BY JEREMY KAY Sierra/Affinity has begun talks with buyers here on OddLot Enter- tainment, Sycamore Pictures and The Walsh Company’s The Way, Way Back marking the feature


Polley travels to UK, Australia


BY WENDY MITCHELL Sarah Polley’s Venice and Toronto hit Stories We Tell has been acquired by Artifi cial Eye for the UK, Palace Films for Australia and Gutek Film for Poland. A US deal was under- stood to be in play. The National Film Board of Canada, which backed the fi lm, is handling sales. The film is a personal essay


about her own family’s secrets. Stories We Tell is Polley’s third


feature (but fi rst doc) as a director, after Away From Her and Take This Waltz. Anita Lee produced.


Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland and Naomi Watts were here on the red carpet last night with JA Bayona’s Asian tsunami drama The Impossible.


Michell’s Weekend in Paris


Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar’s new Embankment Films has boarded sales for Roger Michell’s follow-up to Hyde Park On Hudson. Le Weekend will mark another collaboration between Michell and his usual partners, writer Hanif Kureishi and producer Kevin Loader. Jim Broadbent and Lindsay


Duncan will play a long-married British couple who try to re-invigorate their marriage by visiting Paris. While there, they run into the husband’s former protégé (Jeff Goldblum) who gives them a new vision on life and love. “We are getting a lot of interest from buyers here,” Grumbar told


directorial debuts of Alexander Payne’s Oscar winning screenwrit- ing partners Jim Rash and Nat Faxon. Steve Carell, Toni Collette and Sam Rockwell star. Kevin Walsh


Hubert Boesl


Hyde Park gets wish for Careful


BY JEREMY KAY Hyde Park Imagenation, Troika Pictures and Merced Media Part- ners will fi nance and produce the thriller Careful What You Wish For. Isabel Lucas will star in the story


of a businessman’s wife who embarks on a torrid affair with a high-school student who is impli- cated in a serious crime. Elizabeth Allen will direct from a screenplay by Chris Frisina and principal pho- tography is set for fi rst-quarter 2013. Hyde Park’s Ashok Amritraj pro-


Screen. “The film is fully financed and ready to go.” It will shoot from November in Paris. Michell and Loader’s Free Range


Films will produce in association with Le Bureau for Curzon Film Rights, Film4 and the BFI Film Fund. It marks Curzon’s first move into film financing. Curzon Artificial Eye will release in the UK.


Wendy Mitchell


duces along with Troika’s Robert Stein, Michael A Helfant and Brad- ley Gallo and Myriad Pictures’ Kirk D’Amico. William Gallo, Frisina, Merced’s Raj Singh, Palmstar’s Kevin Frakes and Stuart Brown serve as executive producers. Hyde Park International is han-


dling sales and has already closed deals for Germany (SquareOne), Latin America (Swen), Eastern Europe (Grandview), the Middle East (Phars), Turkey (Aqua Pin- ema), Portugal (Lusomundo), South Africa (Ster Kinekor) and Indonesia (PT Amero).


on The Brass Teapot and Inescapable while ICM Partners continued to fi eld interest in documentary How To Make Money Selling Drugs and screened Brian De Palma’s Passion on Sunday afternoon. Preferred Content’s Midnight Madness entry Hellbenders was also tracking well ahead of its screening.


produces through Walsh Company with Tom Rice of Sycamore Pic- tures. The Way, Way Back centres on a


vacationing teenager who befriends the manager of a water park while his mother pursues a relationship with a disingenuous suitor.


NEWS Secret’s out Diane Lane and Elizabeth Banks will star in Every Secret Thing, sold by Hyde Park » Page 4


REVIEW Above the Clouds David Mitchell’s ‘unfilmable’ novel Cloud Atlas leads to an ambitious ensemble epic » Page 8


INTERVIEW Pirate’s treasure Tobias Lindholm talks about the gritty realism of Somali pirate drama A Hijacking » Page 24


Screen’s digital dailies View the Toronto daily on www.ScreenDaily.com


DEALS ROUND-UP


Celsius comes out to Play Thierry Wase-Bailey’s Celsius Entertainment has taken on international sales rights for Midnight Madness title Come Out And Play, directed by the mysterious Makinov. The English- language story is about demon children at a Mexican beach resort. Cinetic is handling North American rights.


MK2 spreads Something In The Air MK2 has sold Olivier Assayas’ Something In The Air (Apres Mai) to more than 20 territories including the US (IFC), Australia and New Zealand (Palace), Germany and Austria (NFP), Italy (Oficine UBU) Benelux (A-Film), Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia (MCF Megacom), Sweden (TriArt), Finland (Cinema Mondo), Switzerland (Agora), Brazil (Imovision), Taiwan (Filmware) and Israel (Orlando). The film won the best screenplay award in Venice.


Strand in Paradise Strand Releasing has acquired all US rights to Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise trilogy, including Paradise: Love (here at TIFF), Paradise: Faith (which won the jury prize in Venice), and the forthcoming Paradise: Hope. The deal was done between Jon Gerrans of Strand Releasing and Olimpia Pont Chafer of Coproduction Office. Strand plans a 2013 release for all three films.


ISSUE 4


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