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CANNES 2019 Marché du Film

The Match Factory heading to Cannes with new films by Marco Bellocchio and Abel Ferrara

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- The German international sales agent can also boast an Un Certain Regard contender and a Critics’ Week title

The Match Factory heading to Cannes with new films by Marco Bellocchio and Abel Ferrara
The Traitor by Marco Bellocchio

The 72nd Cannes Film Festival (14-25 May) and accompanying Marché du Film look very promising for Cologne-based sales agent The Match Factory, as four titles on the company’s slate will be celebrating their world premieres on the Croisette. 

Shining especially bright on the company’s line-up is Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Marco Bellocchio
film profile
]
, a biopic on Sicilian mafia boss Tommaso Buscetta. The Italian master’s seventh film to compete for the Palme d’Or tells the story of the gangster who, in the early 1980s, during the Second Mafia War, flees and hides out in Brazil. Arrested and then extradited by the local police, Buscetta decides to meet up with judge Giovanni Falcone, thus becoming the first major Cosa Nostra figure to be labelled as an informant.

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The Match Factory will also be pinning its hopes on the Un Certain Regard entry The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Karim Aïnouz
film profile
]
, a tropical melodrama by Brazil’s Karim Aïnouz, whose film Madame Satã competed in the same section at the 2002 edition of the festival. Based on the novel of the same name written by Martha BatalhaThe Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão kicks off in Rio de Janeiro in 1950 and centres on two close sisters who are separated and are forced to live apart. The film follows 18-year-old Eurídice, an aspiring pianist, and 20-year-old Gilda, who dreams of finding true love, as they take control of their separate destinies, while never giving up hope of finding each other.

Also gleaming on the sales agent’s Cannes slate is Tommaso [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Abel Ferrara
film profile
]
, the latest feature by maverick director Abel Ferrara. Starring Willem Dafoe in the title role, the film narrates the story of an American artist living in Rome with his young European wife and their three-year-old daughter (played by the director’s real-life wife and infant daughter), and will be presented as a Special Screening in the festival’s Out of Competition section.

In the Critics’ Week, The Match Factory will be showcasing The Unknown Saint [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Morocco’s Alaa Eddine Aljem, which revolves around a thief who, after a lengthy stretch in prison, returns to the place where he has hidden a bag of money, only to find a shrine to an unknown saint built directly over his loot and a brand-new village constructed all around it. 

Also standing proud on the German-based international sales agent's Cannes line-up is the market presentation of this year’s Tribeca title A Regular Woman [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Sherry Hormann. Inspired by real-life events, the film depicts the story of honour-killing victim Hatun Sürücü, a young German woman of Turkish-Kurdish ancestry, who was shot dead by her own brother in 2005.

Furthermore, the team headed up by Michael Weber will be at the Marché du Film negotiating deals for Abel Ferrara’s The Projectionist, which also celebrated its world premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, as well as for Ivo M Ferreira’s Empire Hotel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile
]
 and four titles from this year’s Berlinale: The Golden Glove [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
interview: Jonas Dassler
film profile
]
 by Fatih AkinA Tale of Three Sisters [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emin Alper
interview: Emin Alper
film profile
]
by Emin Alper, Flatland [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Jenna Bass and O Beautiful Night [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Xaver Böhm
film profile
]
 by Xavier Böhm.

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