Bavaria Film International has taken on worldwide sales rights to Icelandic film-maker Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s melancholic comedy Mamma Gogo ahead of its international premiere in Toronto.

The Icelandic-Norwegian-German-Swedish-UK co-production stars leading Icelandic actor Hilmir Snaer Gudnason as an ambitious young film-maker who has his eyes on an Oscar nomination despite the fact that his latest film is a flop in his native Iceland.

Things become more complicated when the director finds himself having to deal with sceptical bank managers and his elderly mother Gogo, who has started to wander off into her twilight years.

Bavaria will also be representing Chris Kraus’ The Poll Diaries, set to receive its world premiere in Toronto as a special presentation.

Meanwhile, Beta Cinema has secured international rights to Swiss-German film-maker Sophie Heldman’s Colours In The Dark (Satte Farben Vor Schwarz), which will play in competition at San Sebastian.

Inspired by actual events, Heldman’s debut centres on a couple who have been happily married for 50 years when the man’s terminal illness brings surprising changes to their lives and those of their family. Senta Berger and Bruno Ganz will star opposite each other for the first time.

Colours In The Dark will receive its German premiere during the Hof Film Days at the end of October before farbfilm verleih releases it theatrically next year.

The Match Factory has announced a North American rights deal for Benedek Fliegauf’s English-language debut Womb to Olive Films for release in 2011.

Eva Green and Matt Smith star in Womb, which had its world premiere in official competition at Locarno earlier this month where it won the Junior Jury’s Environment Is Quality Of Life award.

Womb was shot along Germany’s North Sea coast in spring 2009 at St Peter Ording and on the island of Sylt, which previously doubled as Martha’s Vineyard for Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, before moving to Berlin’s legendary CCC Studios for interiors.

Meanwhile, Leipzig-based regional fund MDM Mitteldeutsche Medienforderung has awarded €80,000 in production support to Fliegauf’s new feature film project The Crows Fly, which will be produced by Halle-based The Post Republic.

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