MK2 Diffusion will be selling the next film by French auteur Claude Chabrol, the $8 million The Color of Lies. Sandrine Bonnaire and Jacques Gamblin will star in this thriller, introduced to buyers at Berlin, which turns on a series of murders - or apparent murders - in a hamlet in Brittany, a favourite Chabrol stamping ground. Two other leads still have to be cast. The Color of Lies will roll this spring and may well be structured as a co-production by Marin Karmitz's famed Paris-based production house.
Meanwhile, TF1 Int'l has acquired rights outside France, the US and other English-speaking territories to Dan Rosen's 1998 Sundance entry, Dead Man's Curve, an English-language thriller. TF1 Int'l aims to partner in distribution for the US with a US company.
At the market, companies are now picking up films. The slightly daunting news is that the picking is being done by companies which sell films rather than those that buy: territory distributors. The market is, by near unanimous opinion, at the moment fairly slow.
Many prominent sales execs - "such as Alliance Independent Films' Charlotte Mickie or Kevin Wiliams at Sogepaq Int'l and KWA - only arrived here on Saturday. Free-TV is proving difficult in Europe. Berlin is now a one-two act with the AFM.
"Berlin's very important. There are lots of buyers from Germany, France or Italy, say, here," David Linde, president of Good Machine Int'l, told Moving Pictures. "We're using it to prepare the way for the AFM as well as introduce our new pick-up, [Berlin Competition player] Joan Chen's Xiu Xiu," he added.
Le Studio Canal Plus' Jeanne et la garçon formidable has racked up sales at Berlin to Yugoslavia, Russia, Belgium and Japan; negotiations are in place with Switzerland and Germany. Trop (peu) d'amour has sold to Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, Hong Kong and Yugoslavia (all rights). Lola Films Int'l has sold int'l market debutant, Sus ojos se cerraron, and Más allá del jardín to the Kamras Film Group in Finland.
John Hopewell/Liza Foreman
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