Fortissimo Films is handling worldwide sales rights excluding North America for Academy Award-winning director Bill Guttentag's LIVE! which is produced by Mosaic Media Group.

A satire on the modern obsession with reality TV, the film follows an ambitious TV network executive played by Eva Mendes (Training Day, Hitch), who wants to produce a highly controversial Russian Roulette game show where contestants play for the highest possible stakes.

Creator and executive producer of former NBC series Crime And Punishment, Guttentag won two Academy Awards - in 2003 for documentary Twin Towers and in 1989 for the HBO film You Don't Have To Die.

LIVE! marks Fortissimo's first collaboration with Mosaic Media Group's principal producer Charles Roven (12 Monkeys, City of Angels). Roven produced the film with his producing partner Alex Gartner (Indecent Proposal) and William Green (Idlewild, Ali G Indahouse).

The deal was brokered between Charles Roven and Fortissimo's Co-Chairman Michael J. Werner.

Roven commented: 'Fortissimo has the reputation of caring deeply about the marketing and distribution of the films that they choose to represent. These areas are very important to me so they were a natural choice for LIVE! and I'm looking forward to working with them.'

Fortissimo's Werner added: 'We are thrilled and honoured to have been selected by Chuck and the Mosaic team to bring this high concept, thought-provoking film to the world. Bill Guttentag is creating a film which is glamorously entertaining while shockingly compelling and disturbing.'

The film also stars David Krumholtz (Ray, Serenity), Andre Braugher (Poseidon), Eric Lively (Modern Men) Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey's Anatomy), Katie Cassidy (Click), Monet Mazur (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) and Jay Hernandez (World Trade Center).

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