Berlin-based sales outfit Pluto Film will be selling Portuguese-French co-production Night Passengers by Pedro Cabeleira at Cannes' Marché du Film (13-21 May), which is also world-premiering in Cannes’ ACID sidebar. The ACID programme describes the Portuguese-language film as a “gangster film like no other”, playing with tropes of the genre and blending crime and thriller elements.

Cabeleira’s first feature, the low-budget film Damned Summer [+lire aussi :
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interview : Pedro Cabeleira
fiche film], premiered at Locarno in 2017. The director himself was born in the town of Entroncamento, which is the original title of the film and where it is set. In Night Passengers, Laura arrives in Entroncamento, described as a place where “violence, misfortune, greed and loyalty rule the streets”. In this small town, she plans to escape her troubled past and rebuild her life, only to be drawn back in by the promise of fast-earned money and crime.

The film was penned by Cabeleira together with Diogo Figueira. The cast features Ana Vilaça, Cleo Diára, Rafael Morais, Tiago Costa, Sérgio Coragem, André Simões and Henrique Barbosa. Cinematography is by Leonor Teles. The film was produced by Abel Ribeiro Chaves for Portugal’s OPTEC Filmes and co-produced by Edyta Janczak-Hiriart of France’s Kometa Films.

In Cannes, Pluto Film will also continue to sell German thriller Hysteria [+lire aussi :
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interview : Devrim Lingnau
interview : Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay
fiche film] by Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay and German family film Circusboy [+lire aussi :
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interview : Julia Lemke et Anna Koch
fiche film] by Julia Lemke and Anna Koch, which it brought to the Panorama and Generation K+ sections in Berlin, respectively. Hysteria secured the Europa Cinemas Label Award for Best European Film. It will also showcase Xiaoxuan Jiang’s Venice-premiered To Kill a Mongolian Horse, Mathijs Poppe’s intimate documentary The Jacket [+lire aussi :
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interview : Mathijs Poppe
fiche film], Roya Sadat’s Afghanistan-set historical drama Sima’s Song [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], Eric Lamhène’s psychological sister tale Breathing Underwater [+lire aussi :
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interview : Éric Lamhène et Rae Lyn Lee
fiche film], Egil Pedersen’s My Father’s Daughter [+lire aussi :
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bande-annonce
fiche film], Finbarr Wilbrink and Martijn Blekendaal’s The Underground Railroad, Soleen Yusef’s Winners [+lire aussi :
interview : Soleen Yusef
fiche film] and Josef Hader’s Austrian comedy Andrea Gets a Divorce [+lire aussi :
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fiche film].