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CANNES 2016 Market / France

Wolf and Sheep for Alpha Violet

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- Standing out in the Cannes line-up for the Parisian sales company is the debut feature by Shahrbanoo Sadat, which has been selected for Directors’ Fortnight

Wolf and Sheep for Alpha Violet
Wolf and Sheep by Shahrbanoo Sadat

UPDATE (4 May 2016): A week away from the opening of the 69th Cannes Film Festival (which will be held from 11 to 22 May 2016), French international sales company Alpha Violet has taken on international sales for Danish production Wolf and Sheep [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Shahrbanoo Sadat
film profile
]
by Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat (co-produced by Sweden and France – see article), which will have its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight.

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With A Yellow Bird [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Singaporean director K Rajagopal, a feature debut co-produced by French outfit Acrobate Films, and set to have its world premiere in competition in the Critics’ Week, the French international sales agent will be heading back to the Croisette’s parallel section that more than smiled upon it back in 2014 with The Tribe [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, and it fully intends to cause a few sparks to fly at the Film Market with its entire line-up.

Presented two years ago at the project stage by the Cannes Festival’s Cinéfondation Atelier, and backed by such sources as the CNC’s World Cinema Support, A Yellow Bird “is a strong film that fits in with Alpha Violet’s uncompromising editorial policy”, Virginie Devesa (who heads up the Paris-based sales agency together with Keiko Funato) explained to Cineuropa. “Director K Rajagopal leads us as we follow hot on the trail of a man who is released from prison and is searching for his wife and daughter in the hidden underbelly of Singapore, which we’re actually more used to seeing as something of a clinical world. It revolves around a terrible hidden truth, guilt and rage, a lucky encounter and redemption.”

At Cannes, Alpha Violet will also be pinning its hopes on three movies having their market premieres: the offbeat rom-com Marie & the Misfits [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by French director Sébastien Betbeder (who made a huge splash with 2 Autumns 3 Winters [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), which boasts a cast including Pierre Rochefort, Vimala Pons and Eric Cantona; A Double Life by Japan’s Yoshiyuki Kishi (a feature debut revolving around a female philosophy student whose teacher asks her to start following a stranger around the streets for her thesis topic); and The Violin Player by India’s Bauddhayan Mukherji (which follows a day in the life of a violinist who is running out of steam and who is offered the chance to record a solo in a single take, for a large sum of money).

Also standing out on Alpha Violet’s line-up is Luxembourg (read the article), the second feature by the director of The Tribe, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, which is currently in development. The film will be shot next winter in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and will be co-produced by Ukraine, France (via Alpha Violet), Norway and Germany. This extreme perfectionist of a filmmaker, who knows the places involved only too well, as he worked there as a journalist for a number of years, recently completed a kind of pre-shoot and is currently putting the finishing touches to his screenplay.

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(Translated from French)

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