21/05/2013 - Munich-based Arri World Sales has closed several deals on its family films V8: Start your Engines, screening at the market, and stereoscopic 3D animation project Ploe: You Never Fly Alone

The German sales company Arri World Sales is enjoying a very good Cannes market with its line-up of quality family films. V8: Start your Engines (photo) that had its world premiere at the market was bought by Israel and the Icelandic 3D animation film Ploe: You Never Fly Alone was pre-sold to a handful of territories including Poland (Kino Swiat).

V8: Start your Engines [+see also:
trailer
film profile] had two well-attended market screenings and other deals are pending besides Israel according to Head of Sales Moritz Hemminger. Universal Pictures will release it in Germany in September and has committed to its sequel.

The German box office hit Vampires Sisters [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (more than 900,000 admissions so far), winner of the Toronto Kids Jury Prize and Stockholm FF Jury Award was sold to France (Swift), Benelux (Just Bridge Entertainment), Poland, China, with offers pending from Latin America.

The company’s other high-profile title in Cannes Ploe: You Never Fly Alone was introduced at the market with a first teaser and territories that acquired it include Poland, China, South Korea, CIS/Baltics and Israel. “We had bidding wars from Russia and South Korea; it’s very rare to close so many deals so early on a project,” commented Hemminger.  Ploe is the story of a young golden plover who can’t fly and fails to migrate with his family to warmer climates. With the help of friends he learns how to survive and is celebrated as a hero. The animation work split between Iceland’s GunHil studios and Germany’s Trixter Productions will start at the end of 2013.

The live action German film The Little Ghost based on the international best-selling book by Otfried Preussler was pre-sold to Korea and Israel. Universum will release it in Germany in October.

ARRI also attracted interest on the drama Exit to Marrakesh by German Academy Award winner Caroline Link set to open in Germany in October, and Edgar Reitz’s Die Andere Heimat-Chronicle of Desire which follows the prestigious Heimat Trilogy.