Korean sales company Finecut has closed further deals on Kim Ki-duk’s Venice Golden Lion winner Pieta, including the sale of rights for French-speaking Europe (excluding Belgium) to Pretty Pictures.

Pretty Pictures previously distributed Kim’s 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring in France. Finecut head Youngjoo Suh negotiated the deal with Pretty Pictures’ James Velaise.

”Pieta is by far Kim Ki Duk’s best film in a long time. We are delighted to be back in business with the director and the whole Finecut team,” he said.

Finecut also took a number of bids from Japan and ultimately went with King Records for the territory. The film, which was recently chosen as South Korea’s submission to the Oscars’ foreign-language film category, has also gone to Aerofilms for the Czech and Slovak republics and California Filmes for Brazil.

The sales company reported Pieta received “an overwhelming reception” at Toronto where it made its North American premiere to sold-out screenings and expects to close additional deals on US, Canada and Australia soon.

The film previously sold to Italy, Germany, ex-USSR, Hong Kong, Norway, Turkey and Greece. Good Films released it in Italy last weekend with an opening box office of $183,200 (€140,000).

Released in Korea on Sept 6, the film has taken over $2.29m (KW2.5bn) at the local box office to date.

Topics