31/05/2017 - CANNES 2017: Various high-profile movies, such as Radiance and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, were acquired right away at the festival

After cruising the Croisette in Cannes, German buyers closed various deals at the Film Market. The Palme d’Or winner The Square [+see also:
film review
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interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile] by Ruben Östlund had already been bought on the basis of the script by Alamode Film some time ago, but at Cannes, the Munich-based arthouse distributor acquired the Greek competition entry The Killing of a Sacred Deer [+see also:
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interview: Yorgos Lanthimos
film profile] by Yorgos Lanthimos. Meanwhile, the Japanese competition title Radiance [+see also:
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film profile] by Naomi Kawase went to Concorde Film, which also bought the Dutch psychological thriller Silk Road, about a boy from a small town who becomes the most wanted cyber criminal. 

Leipzig-based distributor Weltkino secured the German rights for various titles such as the French competition film The Double Lover [+see also:
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film profile] by François Ozon. Weltkino also snapped up the German rights for the painted animation film Loving Vincent [+see also:
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interview: Dorota Kobiela
film profile], about the renowned Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. 

Arsenal discovered two Latin American films in Cannes. From Argentina comes the Un Certain Regard entry The Desert Bride by Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato, and from Mexico the music documentary Chavela, about the late singer of the same name, who made a big comeback at the age of 70 and performed some of the soundtracks for the films of Pedro Almodóvar. Another sought-after documentary was Walk With Me [+see also:
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film profile] by Max Pugh and Marc J Francis, which provides a profound insight into a Zen Buddhist community. The German-language rights for the film went to DCM. 

Further documentaries were picked up by NFP. Among them is Lorna Tucker’s film Westwood [+see also:
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interview: Lorna Tucker
film profile], about fashion icon Vivienne Westwood, as well as Alexandra Dean’s Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, about the Hollywood actress, which is narrated by Diane Kruger. Furthermore, the German distributor acquired the comedy Some Like It Veiled by French-Iranian first-time director Sou Abadi, in which a young man wears a burka and pretends to be a woman in order to continue seeing his girlfriend when her older brother comes back from Yemen.

French cinema was also the focus of Neue Visionen, which bought the German rights to Julie Bertuccelli’s feature Claire Darling [+see also:
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film profile], in which Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni will appear as mother and daughter. Meanwhile, Square One pre-purchased the German rights to the disaster movie The Quake [+see also:
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film profile], which Norwegian filmmaker John Andreas Andersen will shoot in the autumn. Tiberius Film also acquired several titles such as Mitu Misra’s thriller Lies We Tell, with Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel.

Ascot Elite opted to take the German rights to several projects. Among them is the biopic Borg Vs McEnroe, with Sverrir Gudnason and Shia LaBeouf playing the leads as the famous tennis players, and Sloane U’Ren’s World War II thriller Rita Hayworth With a Hand Grenade, starring Elizabeth Banks. Further titles include the fantasy-adventure Mortal by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter [+see also:
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interview: Andre Øvredal
film profile]), as well as Frédéric Petitjean’s thriller Cold Blood Legacy [+see also:
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film profile], with Jean Reno playing a hit man who has settled down in the Canadian wilderness.