TORONTO BIZ BUZZ 1


SONY PICTURES CLASSICS HAS A RECORD TORONTO

The first few days of the Toronto International Film Festival has seen a spurt of buying for US distributor Sony Pictures Classics. The company already has a record six films screening in Toronto, including Festival opener Being Julia (directed by Istvan Szabo), Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education, Zhang Jimou’s House of Flying Daggers, John Duigan’s Head In The Clouds, and Al Pacino-starrer The Merchant of Venice, has announced some prominent buys.

The company has picked up North American rights to Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s 3-Iron, which just walked off with for major prizes at the Venice Film Festival, including prizes for Best Director and the FIPRESCI Critics Prize.
The film is being sold internationally by Korean sales company Cineclick Asia.

SPC has also signed for North American rights on the Czech film Up And Down, directed by Jan Hrebejk. The film, which was sneak previewed last week at the Telluride Film Festival, follows two family dramas in contemporary Prague, and is playing in the Contemporary World Cinema section in Toronto. Sony distributed Hrebejk’s Oscar-nominated film Divided We Fall in 2000.


FINE LINE FEATURES COMES ON STRONG

With the company focus on the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the past several years, Fine Line Features, the arthouse division of New Line Cinema, is ending its relatively non-active streak. The company is presenting two films in Toronto: the John Waters-directed sex comedy A Dirty Shame, and Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar’s The Sea Inside, which has just won the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor awards in Venice (for the highly buzzed performance of Javier Bardem in the title role).

Fine Line is resuming its longstanding relationship with UK director Mike Leigh, whose latest film Vera Drake won the Golden Lion in Venice and won a Best Actress prize for leading lady Imelda Staunton. The company had previously released the director’s film Naked, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000.

NEW FRENCH SALES AGENT INTRODUCED IN TORONTO

Pierre Menahem, who headed sales efforts for French sales company Celluloid Dreams for the past several years, is in Toronto under a new shingle with the interesting title of Scalpel.

Scalpel is selling Locarno Golden Leopard winner Private, directed by Italian director Saviero Costanza. The film is a harrowing tale of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, centering on the story of a family who decides to stay in their West Bank home after it has been taken over by the Israeli army.

Menahem has sold the film to Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, and is fielding interest from the US, Canada and Western Europe.


CONTEMPORARY WAR DRAMA MAKES INTERNATIONAL DEBUT

Brothers, a Danish film from hot indie production company Zentropa Entertainment (the producers of the films of Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg), had a packed screening in Toronto as the film makes its international debut just weeks after its premiere in Danish cinemas.

The film, which explores the effects of the war in Afghanistan on a returning prisoner of war and his family, is directed by Susanne Bier, the award-winning director of the Danish film Open Hearts, and stars Connie Nielsen (Gladiator), Ulrich Thomsen and sexy newcomer Nikolaj Lie Kaas. The film is being sold by Trust Film Sales, Zentropa Entertainment’s in-house sales arm.


Sandy Mandelberger, Industry Editor