UK distributor New Wave Films picked up a trio of critical hits at the EFM this year, including Golden Bear winnner Caesar Must Die.
UK distributor picked up a trio of critical hits at the EFM this year, including Golden Bear winner Caesar Must Die.
New Wave Films acquired UK rights to a trio of acclaimed Berlinale festival titles at last week’s EFM, including the Taviani’s Golden Bear winner Caeser Must Die (Cesare Deve Morire), in which inmates at a high-security prison in Rome prepare for a public performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Rai Trade handle sales.
New Wave also picked up Miguel Gomes’ Portuguese drama Tabu from The Match Factory. The first half of Gomes’ playful Fipresci and Alfred Bauer-winner is in black-and-white and portrays a Portuguese society wallowing in nostalgia, but the second half transforms into a study of melodrama, slapstick and passion.
Caesar Must Die and Tabu ranked second and third respectively on Screen’s Berlinale critics poll.
New wave rounded out their mini-spree with writer-director Julian Roman Polsler’s Panorama entry The Wall (Die Wand), also from The Match Factory. Martina Gedeck (The Lives of Others) stars in the adaptation of Marlen Haushofer’s best-selling 60’s novel about solitude and survival.
The drama picked up the festival’s Ecumenical Prize.
Pam Engel and Robert Beeson of New Wave Films commented: “We are delighted to have acquired the latest film from the Taviani’s with whom we have worked on several occasions in the past starting with their Palme d’Or winner Padre Padrone. We are also very pleased to have acquired two other award winning films from comparatively new voices in world cinema in Tabu and The Wall.”
Art-house specialist New Wave scored its biggest box office hit to date last year with Le Quattro Volte, which grossed £210,000 from only 21 (at widest) screens.
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