22/05/2014 - CANNES 2014: World-premiered at a Midnight Screening in Cannes, Kristian Levring’s western The Salvation has been sold to IFC Films for the US/Canada

Danish director Kristian Levring’s western The Salvation [+see also:
trailer
interview: Kristian Levring
film profile], which was received with a six-minute standing ovation after its world premiere at an official Midnight Screening in Cannes on Saturday (17 May), has been picked up for the US and Canada by American distributor IFC Films, part of AMC Networks.

Danish international sales agent TrustNordisk has also licensed the Sisse Graum Jørgensen production, for Zentropa Entertainments, to Benelux (Wild Bunch), Australia/New Zealand (Madman Entertainment), France (Chrysalis/Jour2Fete), Greece (Hollywood Entertainment) and Estonia (EstinFilm).

“Levring has assembled an incredible cast and created a classic western that keeps you on the edge of your seat. We are ecstatic to have the opportunity to work with TrustNordisk on this stunning and stirring film,” said Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Films and sister label Sundance Selects. 

“The interest in The Salvation at Cannes has been overwhelming. We have not negotiated such prices and with such clients since Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. Danish films are in high demand, and Mads Mikkelsen is now officially a worldwide star,” added TrustNordisk CEO Rikke Ennis. 

Set in 1870s America, and shot on location in South Africa last spring and summer, The Salvation stars Mikkelsen as an otherwise peaceful settler who kills his family’s murderer, unleashing the fury of a local gang leader. Betrayed by the corrupt community, the peaceful pioneer must slay the outlaws himself and cleanse the town.

Scripted by award-winning Danish screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen, the mainly English-language movie has an international cast consisting of Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eric Cantona, Mikael Persbrandt, Jonathan Pryce and Douglas Henshall. Nordisk Film Biografdistribution is handling local distribution.