Nanni Moretti’s ‘A Brighter Tomorrow’ Scores Slew of Sales – Watch Trailer in Which He Pokes Fun at Netflix (EXCLUSIVE)

Nanni Moretti’s “Il sol dell’avvenire” (“A Brighter Tomorrow”), a multi-layered love letter to filmmaking in the age of streaming giants, has scored a slew of sales ahead of it’s Cannes bow.

French sales company Kinology has sealed deals to Moretti’s latest work with a slew of territories including Germany (Prokino); Spain (Caramel Films); Benelux (Cineart) and Switzerland (Xenix Filmdistribution).

More from Variety

• What Cannes Country of Honor Status Means for Spain

• Sean Penn Calls AI a 'Human Obscenity,' Slams Producers Guild as a 'Bankers Guild'

• Spanish Film Sales: Optimism Amidst Market Challenges

Additional countries that have taken a shine to “Brighter Tomorrow” are Portugal (Midas Filmes); Austria (Filmladen); Ex-Yugoslavia (MCF Megacom Film) Greece (Feelgood Entertainment); Hungary (Circo Film); Israel (Lev Films and Cinemas); Latin America (Providences Films); Romania (Independent Film);  and Turkey (Filmarti).

In “Brighter Tomorrow,” Moretti, who often acts in his movies, stars as a Roman director who is shooting a period piece set in Rome in 1956, the year of the Hungarian Revolution when millions of citizens rebelled against Soviet domination. In this film-within-a-film, a Fellini-esque Hungarian circus arrives in the Italian capital just as Soviet tanks brutally quash the uprising in Budapest and the Italian Communist Party sides with the intervention, prompting Italian intellectuals to become disillusioned with communist ideology.

Moretti’s new film stars French actor-director Mathieu Amalric as the period piece’s producer who goes bust. To salvage the project he tries to set it up with Netflix, where during a hilarious meeting the director (Moretti) is told that the screenplay is “a slow burner that doesn’t detonate” and is missing a “what the fuck” moment. See ‘A Brighter Tomorrow’ Trailer Above

The ensemble cast also features Polish multi-hyphenate Jerzy Stuhr, Moretti regular Margherita Buy, Silvio Orlando and Barbora Bobulova.

Because Moretti customarily gets special permission from Cannes to release his works locally before launching them from the Croisette, “Brighter Tomorrow” came out in Italian theaters on April 20. Since then it has been doing very well at the Italian box office where it has scored almost $4 million and more than 500,000 admissions.

Best of Variety

• Emmy Predictions: Guest Actress (Drama) -- Melanie Lynskey and Anna Torv From 'The Last of Us' Challenging 'Succession' Women

• Tony Predictions: Best Musical -- Four Stand Poised to Give ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ Some Competition 

• This 'Fast and Furious' Arcade Cabinet Allows You to Step Behind the Wheel as Dom Toretto

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.