UK sales and film financing outfit Bankside Films has struck a first-look deal with Dutch producer Kees Kasander and will be handling worldwide sales on Peter Greenaway’s new feature.

Increasingly ambitious UK sales and film financing outfit Bankside Films has struck a first-look deal with Dutch producer Kees Kasander and will be handling worldwide sales on Peter Greenaway’s new feature, Goltzius And The Pelican Company (to be producer by Kasander). The film is about Hendrik Goltzius, a late 16th century printer and engraver of erotic prints. He seduces the Margrave of Alsace into paying for a printing press to make and publish illustrated books.

Through the new alliance with Kasander, Bankside will also be handling Cross My Mind, the new feature
from Antonia Bird that will star Saskia Reeves, Aneurin Barnard, Perter Mullan, Luke Evans and Nichola Burley. The film is about Natalie, a woman who agrees to take over the care of a wounded young soldier, little realising that it will turn her world upside down, igniting a burning sexual passion, a deep and undying love which leads to the tragic death of her husband whom she has loved for 20 years.

Shooting is due to begin in the summer.

Here in Cannes, Bankside is also handling Bringing Up Bobby, the directorial debut of actress Famke Janssen that will star Milla Jovovich. (This is a crime drama about a con artist who will do anything for her 10-year-old son.) Janssen also wrote the screenplay and is producing. Shooting begins in the late summer with delivery due in early 2011.

In the market, Bankside is screening buzz British supernatural thriller Outcast from director Colm McCarthy (following its recent premiere at Austin’s SXSW). US buyers are circling the project with a deal reportedly imminent. Vertigo has taken the UK rights, Shooting Stars has bought the film for The Middle East, Hopscotch has come on board for Australia and New Zealand, and Filmopolis has Greece.

Here in Cannes, Bankside is also handling (among other titles) supernatural ghost story The Caller, musical Bran Nue Day and Istvan Szabo’s The Door, starring Helen Mirren and currently in pre-production.

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