19/05/2005

The Scandinavian sales company Nordisk Film International Sales has closed deals on Nicolas Winding Refn’s thriller Pusher II [+see also:
trailer
film profile] with Galileo Medien buying it for all Germany speaking territories, and Ninety 7 Distribution for France. Galileo had also bought Refn’s first part of the series Pusher I, and has an option on Pusher III. Susan Wendt, sales executive for Nordisk said they will organise another special screening for the two distributors in Denmark.

Among Nordisk’s new products premiering at the market, the comedy Adam's Apples [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anders Thomas Jensen
interview: Mads Mikkelsen
interview: Tivi Magnusson
film profile] was in negotiations for France and Germany as of 18 May, and the film had been sold to Thailand and Malaysia. "Anders Thomas Jensen’s previous film The Green Butchers [+see also:
trailer
film profile] had sold very well internationally, so his new film –a local success with 250,000 admissions in three weeks- is attracting a lot of interest", said Wendt.
The same goes for Next Door, Pål Sletaune’s thriller, although some distributors were a bit hesitant because of the violence in the film. Territories sold in Cannes include Turkey, Thailand and Malaysia.
The Danish version of ‘Green Card’, Chinaman by Henrik Ruben Genz is in negotiations with France, Germany and the UK and was sold again to Thailand and Malaysia.

Nordisk was also presenting the English language film Johnny Was, a Danish/UK/Italian co-production in the same vein as Lock Stock And Two Barrels starring Vinnie Jones, Samatha Mumba and Roger Daltrey. The film will start shooting next June in the UK and Belfast. Nordisk’s sales team gave scripts to read to international buyers and started discussing pre-sales on the project.

Wendt’s general feeling about the Cannes market this year is that distributors wait until the last minute to make up their mind. "It was quite slow for everyone and it feels like there were less people around, she said. France is very tough these days because there is a lot of competition for screen space if you’re not distributed by one of the two major exhibition chains. It you don’t have a big name or festival prize, it takes time to find a distributor."
"Germany remains our second market after Scandinavia, although the fall in admissions this year and the disappointing theatrical success of many Scandinavian titles has made many buyers a bit more cautious."
"Benelux is a good market for us, and we have particularly good relationships with A-Filmand Lumière. The UK is still a tough market for non-English language films, but we have sold Evil and The Green Butchers to Metrodome, and Eureka Video recently bought the animated film Therkel in Trouble."