EFM Roundup: Cinedigm Gets ‘Berlin Job’; Naedomi Takes U.S. ‘Sleeper’s Wake’; ‘The Pact 2′ Set; Radiant Chases ‘Run Boy Run’; K5 & Clive Owen For ‘Blue Angel’ And More
Refresh for latest… Cinedigm has acquired the crime thriller Berlin Job from Arclight Films for release on digital platforms as well as DVD and VOD in North America. The directorial debut by Frank Harper was released in the UK as St. George’s Day. Pic stars Craig Fairbrass, Vincent Regan, Neil Maskell, Luke Treadaway, Sean Pertwee, Jamie Foreman, Ashley WaIter and Charles Dance. The deal was secured by Clay Epstein on behalf of Arclight and Emily Rothschild on behalf of Cinedigm. Arclight Films is handling international sales outside the UK.
Naedomi Media has picked up U.S. rights to the suspense thriller Sleeper’s Wake. Negotiating the deal on behalf of the film were XYZ Films, producer Ken Kaplan and exec producer Sanjeev Singh and Steve Break represented Naedomi Media. Naedomi launched in 2010 and has distributed 16 titles through to 2011 via digital, DVD and television and it has set a midyear release for Sleeper’s Wake. The movie marks director Barry Berk’s feature debut. Berk’s script is based on the acclaimed novel by Alistair Morgan. It stars South African actors Lionel Newton and Deon Lotz. The film is co-produced by Bioskope Pictures and Videovision Entertainment. Sleeper’s Wake concerns a recently widowed man who takes refuge in a small coastal town but gets caught up in a dangerous relationship with a young woman. MPI Media is repping the film for international sales at Berlin. Sleeper’s Wake will be released in South Africa on 8 March 2013 by United International Pictures (South Africa).
Content Film says The Pact 2 is ready for buyers in Berlin. The thriller’s sequel, written and directed by Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath, will start production in the spring. Hallam & Horvath’s debut feature Entrance premiered at the LA Film Festival and was featured on Stephen Kings Best of 2012. The Pact 2 is produced by Preferred Film & TV’s Ross M. Dinerstein and exec produced by Content’s Jamie Carmichael and Nicholas McCarthy. The Pact 2 is the second film produced by the Preferred Content / Content Media Corp venture Preferred Film & TV formed in 2012. Content’s Carmichael and Preferred’s Kevin Iwashina will jointly sell North America and Content will handle the rest of the world. The new movie is set weeks after the original’s deadly climax.
Radiant Films is now handling world sales, including the U.S., on German-French co-production Run Boy Run. The drama from Pepe Danquart, an Oscar winner for his 1993 short Black Rider, is based on Uri Orlev’s novel about a boy who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 and survived on his own in the woods until the end of the war. Newcomer Andy Tkacz stars alongside German actors Jeanette Hain and Rainer Bock, both of whom have done crossover work in U.S. films. Lead co-producers are Bittersuess Pictures and Ciné-Sud/Vandertastic. Run Boy Run will debut on the festival circuit later this year. Picture is a nice fit for L.A.-based Radiant’s Mimi Steinbauer who’s Austrian by birth and says she feels a particular connection to the European material.
The smart guys at Paris-based film finance group BackUp Media think they’ve come up with something that will help revolutionize rights management for international film biz execs – and it’s free, for now. They’ve developed Movie Chainer, a cloud-based application designed to improve the tracking of revenue shares throughout the commercial life of a production. I sat down with BackUp partner Jean-Baptiste Babin in Berlin yesterday for a demo of the software that launches April 30, just in time for Cannes and in partnership with the Cannes Market’s Cinando film database and networking platform. Basically, once contract details are loaded into the system, a whole series of reports, maps and waterfall charts can be generated and simulated including availability lists, revenue splits, payment schedules and cash flow status. The BackUp team, which has been involved through their distribution fincancing fund with such films as Amour, On the Road, A Separation and A Single Man, started work on the application to simplify their own lives, but over time, the project took on a life of its own. There’s a demo and presentation video over at moviechainer.com.
German actor Tobias Santelmann is heading from the seafaring raft of Oscar-nominated Kon-Tiki to leading a band of shipwrecked and marauding Vikings in Northmen – A Viking Saga. Joining him in the English-language action adventure are fellow German actor Ken Duken (Inglourious Basterds, The Poisoners) and Brit James Norton (Rush, An Education). The film, directed by Claudio Faeh, sees a band of Vikings fighting for their lives after being stranded off the coast of Scotland. Zurich-based Elite Film Produktion is producing and London-based The Salt Company has international sales at the EFM. Shooting starts in September for a 2014 release. EOne already has several territories including the UK, France and Australia. Ascot Elite is releasing in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
K5 International is now handling overseas sales on Blue Angel, Richard Levine’s adaptation of Francine Prose’s tense novel. Clive Owen stars as a disillusioned college professor brought back to life by gifted young writing student. Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy of Parts & Labor are producing the story that combines sex, seduction and emotional manipulation. Owen, Levine and Prose are represented by CAA which is repping North American rights. Rose is also repped by the Denise Shannon Literary Agency.
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