Films Distribution presents Golden Bear contender The Robber

by Fabien Lemercier

10/02/2010 - Paris-based international seller Films Distribution is feeling ambitious and optimistic on the eve of the opening of the European Film Market at the Berlinale.

The team headed by Nicolas Brigaud-Robert and François Yon has a line-up including Golden Bear contender Benjamin Heisenberg’s The Robber [trailer, film focus], which centres on a marathon runner turned bank robber and is co-produced by Austria and Germany; and a title selected in the Panorama section: Family Tree [trailer] by French directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (see news).

"We bought The Robber on the basis of the script,” Yon told Cineuropa. "After Falling [trailer], in competition at Venice in 2006 and La Pivellina [trailer] at Cannes last May, it’s a logical continuation of our investment in Austrian cinema. We’re delighted that the film is in competition, where it will attract a lot of attention”.

He continued: “As for Family Tree, we adore this film. Nobody has seen it but it has already won the Jean Vigo Award. As the directors are Panorama regulars, we delayed the film’s presentation until Berlin."

On the current situation in international sales, Yon commented: "The market came out of its coma in January, in Paris. Lots of distributors ran out of stock and now need to buy films. But conditions have deteriorated and we’re picking up again two levels lower than before."

Films Distribution will screen nine films at the market, including Emmanuelle Bercot’s Student Services, starring Déborah François as a young student who gets caught in the spiral of prostitution; and Gunter Schwaiger’s Austrian/Spanish documentary about bullfighting, Arena.

There will also be promo-reels for Yann Samuel’s With Love...From the Age of Reason, starring Sophie Marceau (see news); Fouad Benhammou’s horror film Ruiflec: The Village of Shadows; Laurent Courtiaud and Julien Carbon’s French/Chinese co-production Red Nights; and Pierre Thoretton’s documentary L'Amour Fou, about Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé.

(Translated from French)