Films already finding buyers as fest heats up
TORONTO -- Even before the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival kicked off Thursday with a gala premiere of Paul Gross' wartime romance "Passchendaele," a number of films in the lineup, ranging from the horror film "Vinyan" to the lyric documentary "Of Time and the City," found buyers.
In the number one of what sellers leslie Townes Hope will be a flood tide of Toronto buys, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group acquired domestic and Australian rights to "Vinyan." Fabrice Du Welz's film stars Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart as a twosome searching for their lacking son in a jungle filled with feral children.
Wild Bunch is repping sales for the France-U.K.-Belgium co-production, which premiered final weekend at the Venice Film Festival and bows in Toronto tonight. Release plans haven't yet been determined.
At the opening-night covering of "Passchendaele" at Roy Thomas Hall, the invitation-only audience embraced the heroic romance as a crowd-pleaser, in dividing line to recent years in which homegrown films that opened Toronto underwhelmed.
Canadian actor-director Gross, c. H. Best known for his star turn in the 1990s CBS drama "Due South," appeared on stage to introduce to his fellow cast members, who include Gil Bellows, Caroline Dhavernas and Landon Liboiron.
The film's cast was welcomed onstage by a 20-piece regimental pipe band which played a Vimy Ridge flash in keeping with the First World war theme
The film's producer, Niv Fichman, thanked oil-rich Alberta for injecting $5.5 million into the homegrown movie, which has a $20 1000000 budget.
At the Astral Media pre-gala cocktail, the talk interested how this year's indie offerings would fare in the cheek of a downturn for specialty distributors as the festival's unofficial market gets under way of life Friday.
Three films that had 2008 Festival de Cannes premieres are making their Toronto appearances with impudently inked dispersion deals in tow. Regent Releasing nabbed North American rights to Brillante Mendoza's stark Filipino family dramatic play "Serbis." The official Cannes selection chronicles a family unit forced to turn their dilapidated motion-picture show theater into a hustler-filled porn venue. They grapnel with bigamy, unwanted pregnancy, incest and other issues amidst a harsh landscape.
The Philippines/French production has its North American premiere in Toronto tonight, followed by a U.S. premiere Oct. 12 at the New York Film Festival. A theatrical rollout for the foreign-language cinema in blue-ribbon U.S. cities is set for this winter. Regent's Mark Reinhart negotiated the deal with Fortissimo Films' Michael J. Werner.
Strand Releasing picked up U.S. rights to another Cannes premiere, Terence Davies' autobiographical docu "Of Time and the City," which hits Toronto on Sunday. The highly lyrical contain on the director's childhood in Liverpool transitions from black-and-white to color as it moves from the mid-20th century to the present. Strand is planning a January release, with the pic set for an October bow in the U.K. Hanway Films repped the filmmakers in the sell.
Microdistributor the Cinema Guild acquired U.S. rights to "24 City," Jia Zhangke's unusual docu about a weapons factory converted into luxury condos. The flick, which as well premiered in Cannes and has a Sunday Toronto bow, will be shown at the New York Film Festival later this month and released early next class.
While at that place were lamentations in Venice last hebdomad about that fest's lack of star wattage, Toronto shouldn't suffer any such shortage. Brad Pitt comes to town this weekend to ticket tout the Coen brothers' dark comedy "Burn After Reading," Keira Knightley follows with "The Duchess," Spike Lee will bring his World War II drama "Miracle at St. Anna," Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear will tub-thump for the comedy "Ghost Town," and the hook drama "Pride and Glory" will land Edward Norton and Colin Farrell.
Etan Vlessing reported from Toronto; Gregg Goldstein reported from New York. Steven Zeitchik and Borys Kit in Toronto contributed to this report.
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