Denmark's Trust Film Sales rounded a busy Toronto off with further sales on their two hot titles, Susanne Bier's Open Hearts and Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4-Ever, to France's Haut Et Court. The French company also handled Moodysson's Together with great success.
Austria's Stadtkino also secured Moodysson's Russian-based drama, which like Bier's Dogme-film is enjoying success at the local box-office at the moment. Earlier in the festival Newmarket took US rights to Bier's Open Hearts in front of several other interested American buyers, who later admitted they regretted not securing the film after its closed Cannes screening.
Next week the film is in competition in San Sebastian. Open Hearts, which opened domestically Friday Sept 6, raked up an impressive 45,442 admissions in its opening weekend. It made it the highest grossing of the Danish Dogme titles, outdoing even box-office smash Italian For Beginners' 39,818.
The film is released by major Nordisk Film Biografdistribution on 60 prints, and had highly favourable reviews all around. Lone Scherfig's romantic comedy Italian For Beginners went on to a record-breaking 870,000 admissions (besting even Susanne Bier's phenomenal The One And Only).
However, it is unlikely that Open Hearts will come close to these figures given the films much more serious tone. The heart-wrenching drama stars Mads Mikkelsen (I Am Dina), Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Truly Human), Paprika Steen (Okay) and has talented newcomer Sonja Richter as the charismatic lead.
Open Hearts follow a young couple, who are planning to marry, when a car accident leaves him paralysed. The driver of the car convinces her doctor husband to help the devastated girl, but soon all involved have their lives turned upside down. Zentropa's Vibeke Windeloev produced the film, and Bier wrote the story of troubled relationships with busy writer-director talent Anders Thomas Jensen.
During the film festival in Toronto, Trust Film Sales also sold the Japanese rights to Lars von Trier's highly anticipated new drama Dogville to Gaga.
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