LevelK turns to the dark side

On the eve of this year’s MIPTV, LevelK has snapped up rights to UK and Russian first features as it strives to put together a library of contemporary film noir thrillers.

The British title is UK director Justin Molotnikov’s feature debut, Crying with Laughter.

Launched at last year’s Edinburgh Film Festival, and also shown in Rotterdam, Crying with Laughter went on to win the Scottish BAFTA Award for Best Film.

Starring Stephen McCole as a stand-up comedian “on a bad trip down memory lane,” it received its US première at Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival through Cinetic.

The film’s lead producer was Claire Mundell of Glasgow’s Synchronicity Films in partnership with Rachel Robey & Al Clark of Wellington Films.  New UK distributor Britfilms is giving the film a 20-print release starting April 16.

Meanwhile, LevelK’s new Russian film is Russian director Andrei Libenson’s first film, The One Who Switches Off The Light (Tot, Kto Gasit Svet).

Produced by Sergei Melkumov, Dmitry Meskhiyev and Sergey Shumakov for Moscow’s Art Pictures Studio, The One Who Switches Off The Light follows the hunt for a serial killer in St Petersburg.

Aleksei Guskov plays a  police captain who traces the murderer of little girls – which always occur on a Wednesday – to a strange, small town.

Released domestically by LLC Distribution, The One Who Switches Off The Light has already been sold to France (Movieon), Italy (Kinovista) and Poland (Neovision).

“I try to find directors who see film noir in a new light. While working in the old tradition, they add their own voices and use special effects which were never heard of in the 1940s,” said managing director Tine Klint, of LevelK. “It is still about sex, crime and corruption, and it is still dark and sombre, but first of all it is damned good entertainment.”