28/06/2016 - The ever-active Paris-based outfit co-produced and will handle French distribution for Russian director Ivan I Tverdovsky’s film, which will be vying for the Crystal Globe

Paris-based company Arizona (managed by Guillaume de Seille and Rémi Roy) will shortly be jetting off to the 51st Karlovy Vary Film Festival (1-9 July 2016), where it will be pinning its hopes on its co-production Zoology [+see also:
film review
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interview: Ivan I Tverdovsky
film profile] by Ivan I Tverdovski in competition. One of the 12 hopefuls for the Crystal Globe, the second feature by the director, following the head-turner Corrections Class [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan I Tverdovsky
film profile] (distributed in France last autumn by Arizona), will have its international premiere on Sunday 3 July in the Czech event’s star showcase, after it garnered two prizes a fortnight ago at the Kinotavr Festival in Sochi (Best Actress Award for Natalia Pavlenkova and the Critics’ Award). Produced by Russian outfit New People Film Company together with Arizona and Berlin-based MovieBrats Pictures, Zoology is being sold abroad by Polish sales agent New Europe Film Sales. The storyline, early images of which were unveiled as a work in progress at the Les Arcs European Film Festival, revolves around a woman employed on the management team of a zoo, who leads a humdrum life until one day an animal tail starts growing on her body. This inexplicable phenomenon will turn her life upside down... Arizona will distribute the movie in France in early 2017.

Arizona will also be present in Karlovy Vary’s Work-in-Progress (out of competition), where an exclusive six-minute clip of George Ovashvili’s Khibula will be screened; the movie is currently having the finishing touches put to its edit in Seoul, and is being co-produced by the French outfit together with Georgia (Alamdary Film) and Germany (42film). The film, which portrays the misadventures of a president on the run with several other men as they are pursued by unspecified "enemies" in the mountains, is the third feature by the Georgian filmmaker, following The Other Bank (awarded in 2009 at gatherings such as Paris Cinéma, Yerevan, Copenhagen, Kiev, Fribourg, Wiesbaden and Granada) and Corn Island [+see also:
film review
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interview: George Ovashvili
film profile] (Crystal Globe for Best Film at Karlovy Vary in 2014). Its international sales are being handled by German firm Pluto.

Three further Arizona co-productions are also at a fairly advanced stage of production. Indeed, duo Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross (who broke out with In Bloom [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simo…
film profile]) have just wrapped the shoot for their second opus in Tbilisi: My Happy Family [+see also:
film review
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interview: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon G…
film profile] (co-produced by France together with Georgia and Germany). And in Paris at this very moment, post-production is under way on Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim by Shérif El Bendary (co-produced with Egypt, and the winner of three awards at Work-in-Progress Final Cut in Venice) and on Sideway [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Turkish director Tayfun Pirselimoglu (in competition at Locarno in 2010 with Hair, and winner of the Best Screenplay Award at Rome in 2013 with I Am Not Him [+see also:
film review
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film profile]).

Three other co-productions by the Paris-based company also feature on the schedule of upcoming French releases being handled by Arizona Distribution. 6 July will see the superb Czech feature debut I, Olga Hepnarova [+see also:
film review
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making of
interview: Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda
film profile] by Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda (which opened the Panorama at the 2016 Berlinale – produced by the Czech Republic together with Poland, Slovakia and France) hit screens. It will be followed by Much Ado About Nothing [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Chile’s Alejandro Fernández Almendras (revealed in competition at the Sundance Film Festival) on 21 September, and the documentary The Last Resort [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thanos Anastopoulos
film profile] by Thanos Anastopoulos and Davide Del Degan (unveiled at Cannes, as an official selection special screening – a co-production between Italy, Greece and France) on 23 November.

(Translated from French)