17/05/2005

London-based sales company The Works has finalised in Cannes the sale of Erik van Looy’s The Alzheimer Case [+see also:
trailer
film profile] to China (Domo Media), a historical deal as it is the first Belgian film to be sold to China.
"Although the deal was negotiated a while ago, we had to go through the censorship process which took a while, but now it’s been cleared by the Chinese Censorship Board", said The Works’ Senior Sales Executive Clare Crean. Belgium’s foreign language Oscar 2005 contender will be one of the 20 Western films to be shown in Chinese cinemas this year.

According to Joy Wong, Head of international sales, the Cannes market has been very busy so far as they had as many as six market premieres including Daniele Vicari’s L’orizzonte degli eventi (The Horizon of events) selected at Critics Week and produced by one of The Works’ shareholders, Italian Fandango. The film on their line-up that attracted the most interest from international buyers is Stefan Schwartz’ s The Best Man, a comedy starring Stuart Townsend and Amy Smart. But Wong was waiting for positive word of mouth to grow to finalize some deals.