20/05/2005

Bavaria Film International came to Cannes with the intention to do brisk business on two auteur films platformed at the Festival: Fatih Akin’s new film Crossing The Bridge [+see also:
trailer
film profile] shown in official selection out of competition and Singapore director Eric Khoo’s Be With Me which opened the Directors’ Fortnight. Mission accomplished.
Thorsten Schuman, Head of Sales, told Cineuropa that the response from the international distributors was ‘wonderful’ on those films. "Buyers (in particular from Europe) seemed to be more open and to have a more positive attitude compared to last year", he noted.

Fatih Akin’s much awaited new film after Head On (Golden Bear winner at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival) was snapped by many territories in Cannes including Benelux (A-Film), Poland (SPI), Spain (Golem), Greece (Rosebud), Turkey (R Films), Israel (Orlando), ex –Yougoslavia (Discovery) and Scandinavia. The inspired journey into the heart of Istanbul’s music scene will be released in Germany by NFP on 12 June and MK2 in France will follow right after with a July release. Negotiations were under way with the UK and the US.

Be With Me, the third feature film by talented Singapore director Eric Khoo, discovered in Cannes 1997 with his film 12 Storeys shown at Un Certain Regard, also attracted a lot of attention in Cannes. It was sold to Spain (Civite), Switzerland (Trigon Film), the UK (Pecadillo Films) and Thailand (New World Pictures).

Other deals closed in Cannes include Marc Rothemund’s Silver Bear winner Sophie Scholl - The Final Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile] sold to Korea (Sponge), Florian Gallenberger’s first feature film Shadows of Time sold to Italy (Metacinema), female director Anahi Berneri’s feature debut Un año sin amor sold to France (Epicentre) and Thailand (New World ).

Bavaria which usually handles between 15-20 feature films each year also started discussing several titles in post-production such as Almost Heaven by Ed Herzog starring Heike Makatsch (Love Actually), Obada by Basque filmmaker Montxo Armendáriz, The Red Cockatoo produced by successful German company X-Filme (Run Lola Run), as well as Raoul Ruiz’ Le Domaine perdu starring François Cluzet and Grégoire Colin.