27/10/2005

UK based international sales company Celsius Entertainment is going to celebrate its first year of activity at the upcoming American Film Market (November 2-9) with a strong line-up of six titles including the European co-production Crusade by Dutch director of Twin Sisters Ben Sombogaart.
The $16m film starring Emily Watson, Stephanie Leonidas. Michael Culkin and Jan Decleir is produced by Kasander Films in Holland with its UK production arm Kasander Productions Ltd, Marmont Film in Belgium, Focus Films in Hungary, Intuit Pictures in Germany and Delux Productions in Luxembourg. Based on Theo Beckman’s novel ‘Crusade In Jeans’, the film tells the story of a teenager who is sent by mistake to the 13th century and who has to draw on his strengths and bravery to save 8000 children from a sinister plot to enslave them. Celsius will show a promo-reel of the film set to be completed for Cannes 2006.

Also available as a promo-reel is Douglas Mackinnon’s The Flying Scotsman based on the true story of Scottish cycling record-breaker Graham Obree. The film starring Johnny Lee Miller and Laura Fraser is produced by Peter Brown (Rob Roy) and Damita Nikapota (Forever Mine) and territories that have pre-bought the film include Italy, Scandinavia and Portugal.

Currently in production is Paris je t’aime, a 20X 5 minutes homage to the French capital of love and romance by 20 of the world’s top filmmakers including the Coen brothers, Tom Tykwer, Olivier Assayas, Gus van Sant, Sylvain Chomet, Alexander Payne, and Christoffer Boe. The project is produced by Claudie Ossard, Emmanuel Benbihy, Chris Bolzli and Gilles Caussade.
Celsius’s CEO Thierry Wase-Bailey will continue negotiating the rights to Penelope Spheeris’ The Gospel According To Janis based on the life of rock legend Janis Joplin, and will have a market premiere of Vincent Ward’s historical drama River Queen, a $17m New-Zealand/UK co-production starring Samantha Morton, Kiefer Sutherland and Stephen Rea.