EXCLUSIVE: Drafthouse Films has picked up North American rights to Japanese director Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play In Hell? ahead of its Venice world premiere.

Sono describes the film as “an action film about the love of 35mm” and directed it from a screenplay he wrote nearly 15 years ago.

Why Don’t You Play In Hell? follows the collusion between an amateur production crew and a Yakuza boss as they attempt to make a movie amid the decade-long war between two rival crime lords.

The film will receive its North American premiere in Toronto and is set to open in 2014 on VoD/digital and theatrical.

Tim League and James Emanuel Shapiro brokered the deal on behalf of Drafthouse Films with Yoshimura Yumiko of T-Joy Co.

Topics