03/06/2015 - The French international sales agent will head back to Karlovy Vary with one title in competition and some other impressive tricks up its sleeve

The Sound of Trees by François Peloquin

Over its three years of existence, and market after market, Alpha Violet, the Paris-based company managed by Virginie Devesa and Keiko Funato, has established itself as an international seller that knows how to ferret out young, original talents, from the Spaniard Antonio Méndez Esparza to Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (both of whom were victorious in the Cannes Critics’ Week, in 2012 and 2014), as well as Russia’s Nataliya Kudryashova (who rose to fame this year in the Berlinale Panorama). Its role as a kind of homing device will certainly not be contradicted by the 50^th edition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival (3-11 July 2015), where Alpha Violet will be selling The Sound of Trees by François Peloquin, a feature debut from Quebec that has been selected for the international competition. 

At the recent Cannes Film Market, Alpha Violet pre-sold the German-Ukrainian co-production Luxembourg, the upcoming film by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (who came to fame with The Tribe [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), for the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), the countries of the former Yugoslavia (MCF) and Greece (Danaos), with negotiations at a very advanced stage for France and Japan. This film noir, which will be set in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, featuring a police officer who lurks among the shadows and a manhunt, will begin shooting at the end of the year. Interestingly, Alpha Violet also concluded sales for The Tribe on the Croisette: it was acquired by Taiwan (Cineplex), Thailand (HAL Distribution), Italy (Officine Ubu) and Mexico (MV films). Furthermore, it completed sales for the Franco-Colombian co-production Mateo [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Maria Gamboa (acquired by HBO, Sundance Channel and DirectTV) and the Hungarian title For Some Inexplicable Reason [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Gábor Reisz (revealed at Karlovy Vary, the winner of multiple awards at Turin and successful in Hungarian theatres), which was bought for Germany by Déjà Vu.

For the record, Alpha Violet’s line-up also includes such movies as Raging Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Julia Kowalski (read the article), which had its premiere at Cannes in the alternative ACID programme, Thirst [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Svetla Tsotsorkova
film profile] by Bulgarian director Svetla Tsotsorkova (in post-production) and Marie & the Misfits [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French filmmaker Sébastien Betbeder (in production, starring Éric Cantona, Pierre Rochefort Vimala Pons, Damien Chapelle, Emmanuelle Riva, Didier Sandre and André Wims).

(Translated from French)