Film Movement has acquired US rights to Philipp Yuryev’s Venice Giornate degli Autori Director’s Award winner The Whaler Boy and Ivan Ostrochovsky’s Berlinale selection Servants (exclusive).
Both films are in the pipeline for 2021 theatrical releases followed by roll-out on home entertainment and digital platforms.
The Whaler Boy stars Vladimir Onokhov as Leshka, a 15-year-old whale hunter in the north eastern region of Russia who contemplates a perilous voyage across the on the Bering Strait to meet a girl he encounters on a webcam site.
The coming-of-age drama premiered at Giornate degli Autori last year where it won the award, and was also nominated for a Golden Star at the El Gouana Film Festival, and played in official selection at Thessaloniki and Reykjavik.
Servants takes place in Communist-run Czechoslovakia in the 1980s and explores the relationship between church and state as two teenagers at a seminary discover the extent of government control. Samuel Skyva and Samuel Polakovic star.
After its debut at the 2020 Berlinale, Servants played a number of festivals and earned Ostrochovsky the best director award at Valladolid International Film Festival.
Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg and Loco Films head of sales Arnaud Godard announced the acquisitions.
Among the distributor’s recent pick-ups are Amjad Abu Alala’s Sudanese Oscar submission You Will Die At Twenty, Swiss submission My Little Sister directed by Stephanie Chuat and Veronique Reymond, and Dzintars Dreibergs’ Latvian contender Blizzard Of Souls.
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