Wild Bunch, Gaga tie for sales of Kore-eda's I Wish

Wild Bunch has acquired all sales rights outside of Asia while Gaga remains the sales agent for Asian territories as well as the film’s domestic distributor.

Both companies will begin sales activities at the upcoming EFM in Berlin. As previously reported on ScreenDaily, Gaga began promoting the project (under the working title Miracle) at last October’s TIFFCOM market in Tokyo.

Kore-eda’s films are regularly sold by Celluloid Dreams, though Wild Bunch previously handled 2001 drama Distance.

The project marks the Nobody Knows director’s return to child protagonists in a story of two young brothers (real-life siblings Koki and Ohshiro Maeda) separated by the divorce of their parents, played by Joe Odagiri and Nene Otsuka. The construction of a new super express bullet train connecting Hakata and Kagoshima gives them hope of reuniting as a family once again.

I Wish opens June 11 in Japan, soon after the actual train begins service in March. In partnership with Kore-eda’s regular backer TV Man Union and Gaga, East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) and Kyushu Railway Co. (JR Kyushu) invested in the film as an advertising tie-in with the new line.