02/05/2014 - International sales agency The Yellow Affair will launch Mika Kaurismäki’s historical epic to international buyers at Cannes

Currently in post-production, Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki’s €6.5 million historical epic, The Girl King [+see also:
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film profile], will be introduced to international buyers at the upcoming Cannes International Film Festival (14-25 May) by Finnish-Swedish international sales agency The Yellow Affair.

Yellow CEO Miira Paasilinna will screen an eight-minute promo for the new production about the 17th-century Swedish Queen Kristina, who ruled from the age of seven until her abdication at 28 (also depicted in US director Rouben Mamoulian’s Queen Christina, with Greta Garbo in the lead).

Swedish actress Malin Buska stars alongside an international cast that includes Sarah Gadon, Michael Nyqvist, Lucas Bryant and Laura Birn; Michel Marc Bouchard scripted the Kaurismäki production for his own Marianna Films, with Canada’s Triptych Media and Gala Film, Germany’s Starhaus and Sweden’s Anagram.

At the Marché du Film, Paasilinna is also touting Finnish director J-P Valkeapää’s drama-thriller They Have Escaped, about a young couple – a boy and a girl who are infatuated with each other – who steal a car and flee together from a custody centre for problematic youths. Valkeapää scripted the film with Pilvi Valkeapää.

Swedish director Ronnie Sandahl’s feature debut, Underdog, follows a young girl who has left her unemployment in Sweden behind her in order to start a new life in Oslo, Norway. After surviving on very little cash, irregular work and some hardcore partying, she lands a job as a housekeeper – and falls in love.

Having already screened at the Berlinale and New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, Swedish director Sofia Norlin’s Broken Hill Blues [+see also:
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film profile] follows four young people, their dreams and their first steps towards building a new society in Kiruna, Sweden's northernmost city situated on a mine that could tear it apart.

Besides Nordic features, The Yellow Affair will also be selling Australian director Kasimir Burgess’ drama Fell, Canadian director William D MacGillivray’s drama Hard Drive, Spanish director Chema Rodríguez’s drama Nightfall in India, Helsinki-based Brazilian director Amir Arsames Escandari’s documentary Pixadores [+see also:
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film profile] and US director Randy Murray’s documentary The Joe Show.