EuropaCorp buys Roissy Films
Luc Besson and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam’s production, distribution and international sales outfit EuropaCorp is growing at breakneck speed.
Following its stock market flotation on July 6 (see article) and the appointment of Olivier Montfort (former Director of Sony Music France) to the post of Director General at the end of September, yesterday the outfit signed a preliminary agreement to acquire Roissy Films. The deal is expected to be finalised in January.
Owned and run by Raphaël Berdugo, Roissy has a 500-strong film catalogue, featuring almost 400 titles by Robert Bresson, Jacques Demy, Costa Gavras, Federico Fellini, Marco Ferreri, John Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Nagisa Oshima, Jean Renoir, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette, Claude Sautet, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Volker Schlondörff, Régis Warnier, Francis Véber and Wim Wenders.
Some of the titles and projects recently sold internationally by Roissy are Nadine Labaki’s Caramel [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Martin Provost’s Séraphine, Gérard Krawczyk’s L'Auberge rouge [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and One Girl Against the Mafia by Italian director Marco Amenta.
With growth targets of 100% between now and 2011, EuropaCorp’s purchase (estimated at €28m) is part of a strategy that involves possible remakes, sequels and prequels, as well as access to Roissy’s video library (via GIE Fox Pathé Europa) and Video On Demand (VOD). In the latter area, EuropaCorp has signed agreements with seven platforms to date.
Titles to be distributed theatrically by EuropaCorp in coming months include Ariel Zeïtoun’s Le dernier gang (formerly Les Buttes-Chaumont) on October 31, Hitman [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Frontier(s) by Xavier Gens on December 26 and January 9, and Four Minutes [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by German helmer Chris Kraus (see interview) on January 16.
Further upcoming releases are Christian Faure’s Les hauts murs (“High Walls”) on January 30, Isabelle Doval’s My Very Best Friend [+see also:
trailer
film profile] on February 13, Pierre Morel’s Taken on February 27 and Olivier Van Hoofstadt’s Go Fast [+see also:
trailer
film profile] on March 19, as well as undated titles, such as Gal by Miguel Courtois.
(Translated from French)
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