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DISTRIBUTION Production / France

The Last Summer of La Boyita: the new life of Epicentre Films

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Having already distributed this year To Die Like a Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Portuguese helmer João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009 LUX Prize finalist Eastern Plays [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kamen Kalev
film profile
]
by Bulgarian director Kamen Kalev and The World is Big [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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by his compatriot Stephan Komandarev, Epicentre Films is releasing Julia Solomonoff’s The Last Summer of La Boyita [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
tomorrow in French cinemas. Discovered last year at San Sebastian and an award winner at a number of festivals (among which Malaga, Miami, Sofia, Toulouse, Cartagena, Ceará and Havana), the debut feature by the Argentinean filmmaker is also the first co-production by the French distributor who has joined up for the occasion with the Almodovar brothers’ Spanish outfit: El Deseo. Highly appreciated by French critics, The Last Summer of La Boyita is being sold internationally by German outfit M-Appeal.

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"I discovered 15 minutes of the film in 2008 at the BAFICI Cinema in Construction in Buenos Aires and we immediately began co-production," tells Daniel Chabannes who directs Epicentre. "We are also going to co-produce a Chilean film and the upcoming feature by João Pedro Rodrigues, La dernière fois que j’ai vu Macao (“The Last Time I saw Macao”), whose shoot begins at the end of the year. Right now, the French distribution market is saturated and those that do the best are distributors who diversify their activity in production, international sales and even operations. Being a co-producer also avoids being at the mercy of international sales outfits which has pushed up the bidding. Lastly, it’s a personal satisfaction to be able to claim a little of the ownership of a film."

Daniel Chabannes who considers himself as ‘a pioneer’ has introduced to France stars such as Kelly Reichardt and Szabolcs Hadju and distributed films by Dagur Kari, Mika Kaurismaki, Ventura Pons, Pablo Berger, Marco Simon Puccioni and Lionel Baier among others. "As soon as they are a little known, they go and see the big distributors: that’s the rule of the game. So, without falling into the idiosyncrasy of big commercial films, if you want to make niche films, you have to find a niche that will prove profitable," points out the owner of Epicentre. "When I buy a film, I take all the rights (cinema, DVD, TV). With European films, we do however have the opportunity to make use of TV distribution obligations. Moreover, we are releasing films accompanied by a method of learning Spanish in a fun way and we are working today with school-goers."

Epicentre will release Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s Alamar (winner this week at Rotterdam) on December 1, 2010, Hélène Angel’s This Property is Condemned on January 19, 2011 and The Strange Case of Angelica [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(a big hit at Cannes Certain Regard in May) by Portuguese helmer Manoel de Oliveira on March 16, 2011.

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(Translated from French)

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