Wavelength secures French deal for 'You Can't Escape Lithuania'

UK-based Wavelength Pictures has sold all rights for French-speaking territories to Optimale for You Can’t Escape Lithuania, the second feature by Lithuania’s openly gay filmmaker Romas Zabarauskas.

The LGBT road movie – which was also co-produced by Wavelength’s John Flahive – had been presented as a work in progress at last year’s Meeting Point Vilnius (MPV) during the Vilnius International Festival and was released theatrically in Lithuania in November.

MPV’s head of industry Rita Stanelyte revealed that this year’s work in progress section this April will be casting its nets further to include all Central and Eastern European countries after previously focusing on the Baltic states and the Eastern Partnership countries from the former Soviet Union

Further pick-ups

Elsewhere, Manuela Buono’s Trieste-based sales company Slingshot Films has picked up Slovenian filmmaker Janez Burger’s latest feature Ivan, starring one of this year’s European Shooting Stars, Maruša Majer, as a woman finding her true identity in a world tailor-made for men.

UK-based sales agent Jinga Films has taken on international distribution for German director Tini Tüllmann’s feature debut, the psychological thriller Freddy Eddy, which screens at the Genrenale festival in Berlin (13-16 Feb) on Feb 14.