19/05/2006

Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kari is going to direct Ryan Gosling and Tom Waits in his first English language film, The Good Heart, just added to Katapult Film Sales’ Cannes line-up. The talented director of the multi-award winning film Noi Albinoi (2003) and Dark Horse [+see also:
trailer
film profile], selected last year for Un Certain Regard, will start shooting the film next fall.

The Good Heart tells the story of a homeless and pathetic young man, Lucas, who by chance encounters Jacques, the lonely owner of a rundown bar fighting for his life after a fifth heart attack. Jacques decides to teach Lucas so that he may take over the bar after his death. Everything is going according to plan until April, a European stewardess, stumbles into the bar, drunk.

The film will be produced by Skuli Fr. Malmquist and Thor Sigurjonsson for Zik Zak Production in Iceland and executive produced by veteran Icelandic-born producer Joni Sighvatsson (Wild at Heart), based in the US.

Sighvatsson, who founded L.A.-based Katapult Film Sales two years ago with former Trust Film Sales CEO Thomas Mai, is also co-producer on the highly anticipated film Zidane: A XXI Century Portrait, which will have its world premiere out of competition on May 22. The film portrait, in action and in real time, of football star Zinedine Zidane is the directorial debut of French-born Philippe Parreno and UK filmmaker Douglas Gordon. Katapult will also sell the film, which was co-produced in France by Anna Lena Films.

Katapult has also just picked up The Hawk is Dying by US filmmaker Julian Goldberger, screening today at the Directors’ Fortnight, and is representing the intriguing Destricted, a collection of seven explicit short films by acclaimed artists and directors such as France’s Gaspar Noé, Serbia’s Marina Abramovic and the USA’s Larry Clark, which will screen on May 23 in the Critics’ Week.