17/05/2008

Fortissimo Film Sales has announced several deals on Kiyoshi Kurosama’s Tokyo Sonata, premiering today at Un Certain Regard; Brillante Mendoza’s Serbis, screening tomorrow in official competition; and Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux, screening out of competition.

Tokyo Sonata, a co-production between Japan/Hong Kong and the Netherlands, has sold to ARP in France, who also picked up Ashes of Time Redux, while the Filipino/French Serbis co-production was sold to Equation Films in France. Also for France, La Fabrique de Films picked up Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer and I Am Because We Are by Nathan Rissman, a documentary produced and narrated by Madonna, which will have its international premiere on Wednesday as part of the amfAR’s Cinema Against AIDS 2008 event.

Other deals closed just before Cannes include Wong Kar Wai and Hal Hartley’s libraries, picked up by Artificial Eye for the UK; the Chinese action film Battle of Wits, acquired for the UK by Metrodome; and United King (Israel), who picked up six titles, including Serbis, I Am because We Are, Country Wedding (the directorial debut of Icelandic editor Valdis Oskarsdóttir) and Gigantic, the US romantic comedy in pre-production starring Paul Dano, Zoey Deschanel and John Goodman.

Among the new titles recently added to Fortissimo’s line-up is The Magic Bus, the new film by 2008 Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side). The project is produced by Gibney’s UK production outfit Jigsaw Film with Optimum Releasing. It focuses on the infamous bus trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranskters to the 1964 World's Fair.