AFM: New Europe Picks Up Mar del Plata Competition Title ‘The Lunchroom’ (EXCLUSIVE)
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Jan Naszewski’s sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has signed a world sales deal for the Mar del Plata Film Festival competition title “The Lunchroom” (Planta Permanente), directed by Ezequiel Radusky, which it is selling at AFM. It’s Radusky’s second film after “The Owners,” which played in Cannes’ Critics’ Week.
The film centers on Lila, who is a cleaner in a municipal building and runs an unofficial staff cafeteria with her friend Marcela. When Lila gets the chance to run it officially as the boss, this elevation provokes Marcela’s envy, and unsettles the delicate balance in the life of the office block.
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Nicolas Avruj, who produces alongside Diego Lerman for Campo Cine in Argentina, said: “A job where you cannot be fired can be paradise, but it can also be hell. ‘The Lunchroom’ is a funny dark film where we have the chance to rejoice with the small miseries that a minor change could introduce in a structured and hierarchical office milieu.”
Naszewski described the film as “a subtle, intelligent drama, which offers an emotional load and great observation of human behavior as well as humanist and feminist message that can be very inspiring, especially for women.”
The film was co-produced by Mariana Secco of Salado in Uruguay. The script was written by Lerman and Radusky. It was supported by INCAA, ICAU and Ibermedia, and won the best project award at the Europe – Latin America Co-production Forum at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2017. Avruj and Lerman’s credits include “Refugiado,” “Los Hongos” and “Monos.”
New Europe, based in Warsaw, Poland, attends AFM with two national Oscar submissions: “Corpus Christi” by Jan Komasa (Poland) and “A White, White Day” by Hlynur Palmason (Iceland), both to be released in the U.S. by Film Movement.
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