11 Golden Lion contenders for French sellers

by Fabien Lemercier

01/09/2009 - French international sellers will arrive in force tomorrow on the Lido for the opening of the 66th Venice Film Festival, with line-ups including 11 of the 23 titles in competition.

MK2 is handling sales for Persécution [trailer] by France’s Patrice Chéreau; Les Films du Losange for fellow French director Jacques Rivette’s 36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak [trailer]; SND for The Double Hour [trailer, film focus] by Italy’s Giuseppe Capotondi; Celluloid Dreams for Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon; and Memento Films International for Between Two Worlds by Sri-Lanka’s Vimukthi Jayasundara.

Other films include those on the line-up of Coproduction Office (Lourdes by Austria’s Jessica Hausner, Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men [trailer] and Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Bullet Man); Wild Bunch (White Material [trailer] by France’s Claire Denis and Mr. Nobody [trailer, film focus] by Belgium’s Jaco van Dormael); and Films Distribution (Il Grande Sogno [trailer, film focus] by Italy’s Michele Placido).

Several other French sales companies will be in attendance at Venice, including Pyramide, who are selling Yousry Nasrallah’s Egyptian production Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (out of competition). Meanwhile, Umedia will be hoping for success with Felipe Hirsch and Daniela Thomas’ Brazilian feature Insolação, in the Horizons section.

Orly Films is managing sales for Claude and Nathan Miller’s I’m Glad that My Mother Is Alive [trailer], selected in Venice Days. In the same section, Doc & Film International has two titles (Merzak Allouache’s French/Algerian co-production Harragas [trailer] and L’amore E Basta [trailer] by Italy’s Stefano Consiglio), as does Rezo Films (French director Léa Fehner’s Silent Voice [trailer] and The Blood and The Rain by Colombia’s Jorge Navas), while Nova Film International will negotiate sales for Goran Paskaljevic’s Serbian/Albanian co-production Honeymoons.

Finally, in Critics’ Week, Wide will sell Domaine [trailer] by France’s Patric Chiha and Memento is representing Tehran [trailer] by Iran’s Nader T. Homayoun.

(Translated from French)