Urban Distribution International places its hopes on Tsaï Ming Lang

by Fabien Lemercier

01/02/2013 - Launch of sales at the EFM for Diary of a Young Boy by the Taiwanese maestro, and for the triple-director title 3X3D signed by Godard, Greenaway and Pêra

The European Film Market at the 63rd Berlinale (February 7th to 17th, 2013), looks very promising for the French sales company Urban Distribution International which will start negotiations for Diary of a Young Boy by Tsaï Ming Liang (photo), a film currently in post-production and co-produced by the Parisian company JBA (Jacques Bidou and Marianne Dumoulin). As a reminder, the Taiwanese filmmaker won awards in Berlin in 1997 and 2005, and was selected three times in competition in Cannes (1998, 2001 and 2009) and three times in Venice (1994, 2003 and 2006).

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Written by the director, the screenplay of Diary of a Young Boy recounts the misfortunes of a father (Lee Kang-sheng, Tsaï Ming Liang’s fetish actor) and his two young children, who are looking for a kind of Noah’s Ark in order to survive in a society gone mad because of over-consumption.

In Berlin, Frédéric Corvez’s team will also launch the pre-sales of 3X3D, a collection of three short films signed by the famous Franco-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard, British director Peter Greenaway and Portuguese director Edgar Pêra. The film (in post-production), which explores 3D and its evolution in the cinematographic landscape and from the spectators’ point of view, was co-produced by Rodrigo Areias for Fundaçao Cidade de Guimarães, already in charge of Historic Centre [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (directed by Aki Kaurismäki, Pedro Costa, Victor Erice and Manoel de Oliveira).

Urban Distribution International, which this year has a film selected for the Panorama with the American documentary Fifi Howls from Happiness by Mitra Farahani, will also pre-sell the post-production titles El Mudo by Daniel et Diego Vega (a co-production uniting Peru, France and Mexico) and Roa by Andrés Baiz (Colombia-Argentina). Market screenings will also include I’m a Standard Supporter by Belgian director Riton Liebman and two Swiss documentaries: Sadhu by Gaël Métroz and Viramundo by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud (which follows Brazilian singer and guitarist Gilberto Gil in a concert held in a small Amazonian village).