22/05/2015 - CANNES 2015: The two Swedish distributors – as well as the Norwegian one – have been shopping from the festival’s official programmes

Swedish director Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman – In Her Own Words, which was world-premiered on Tuesday 19 May at the Cannes International Film Festival, will be launched in Scandinavia on 28 August by NonStop Entertainment – the day before the Swedish star’s centennial.

“We are really looking forward to releasing the movie about this year’s poster girl for Cannes,” said Jakob Abrahamsson, head of distribution/acquisition at NonStop, the Stockholm-based Scandinavian-Baltic distributor, which is part of Turner Broadcasting System.

Copenhagen’s TrustNordisk is selling the Bergman biopic, which NonStop took for Scandinavia, Iceland and the Baltics. 

Abrahamsson will return from the festival with a raft of international titles, including Japanese director Naomi Kawase’s An [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which opened the Un Certain Regard programme (from Paris’ MK2), and UK director Gaby Dellal’s upcoming transgender drama Three Generations, starring Susan Sarandon, Naomi Watts and Elle Fanning (from NY-LA’s IM Global). 

NonStop will also handle US writer-director Josh Mond’s feature debut, James White, with Christopher Abbott and Cynthia Nixon in the leads (from Paris’ Memento Film), and US director Michael Almereyda’s The Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder in a historical drama about the Stanford prison experiments (from LA’s Bleiberg Entertainment).

Other NonStop titles include Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s Game Count (Stockholm’s Chimney Group), Argentinean director German Kral’s Our Last Tango (Munich’s Lailaps Pictures), US directors David T Friendly and Mick Partridge’s Sneakerheadz (New York’s Submarine Deluxe), David Gregory’s Lost Soul (LA/London’s Severine Films), and Fabrizio Conte’s Club Life (Bleiberg).

Sweden’s Edge Entertainment – set up last year by veteran Swedish distributor Ignas Scheynius – signed for French director Guillaume Nicloux’s Palme d’Or contender Valley of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. The film stars Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu as a separated couple who haven’t seen each other for years; they meet again in Death Valley, California, in response to an invitation from their son, who committed suicide six months earlier.

Edge acquired Valley of Love from Paris-based Le Pacte for Scandinavia and Iceland – Filmbazaar will sub-distribute in Denmark. For Scandinavia, Iceland and the Baltics, Scheynius secured UK director Cosima Spender’s Palio [+see also:
trailer
film profile], about the intrigue and power play behind the world’s oldest horse race in Siena, Italy. The documentary from London’s Altitude Film Entertainment was world-premiered and awarded at New York’s Tribeca Festival earlier this year.

Finally, Norwegian distributor Arthaus has announced it has picked up Hungarian director László Nemes’ Son of Saul [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: László Nemes
interview: László Rajk
film profile] for Norwegian distribution. Selected for competition at Cannes, Nemes’ feature debut is for the most part set in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944, following Saul, a Jewish prisoner and member of a Sonderkommando, which removes the corpses and their effects after mass executions. Sold by Paris-based Films Distribution, the film will be premiered in Norway next year.