Front Row Entertainment, the Dubai-based distributor that is among the world’s most prolific pre-buyers of independent films, has added several more titles to its brimming release slate.

Working in tandem with the Kuwait National Cinema Company, the publicly-traded cinema operator acquires an average of 85-95 titles a year for release throughout the Gulf region. CEO Gianluca Chakra says 35 of these are targeted for theatrical release.

Front Row has picked up:

*Philip Noyce’s Bloodsport, a retelling of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 1988 hit that was acquired from HanWay Films;

*Also from Hanway comes Reykjavik, a dramatisation of the US-Soviet 1986 summit with Michael Douglas [pictured] playing Ronald Reagan and Christophe Walz as Mikhail Gorbachev;

·      Blood Ties, Wild Bunch’s English-language remake of the French action thriller Les Liens Du Sangue, directed by Guillaume Canet and starring Clive Owen, Mila Kunis and Marion Cotillard.

·      The F Word, a romantic comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan that was bought from E One.

At the Cannes Film Festival this year, Front Row acquired 29 films including Diana, starring Naomi Watts; action comedy Agent Century 21, starring Cameron Diaz and Benicia Del Toro, and Mission: Blacklist starring Robert Pattinson as the Army interrogator who help tracked down Saddam Hussein.

While these films complete production, Gulf audiences can also look forward to several high-profile Front Row films set for release in 2013 including Ron Howard’s Formula 1 racing drama Rush; action thriller Snitch starring Dwayne Johnson, and Inch’Allah, the true story of a young Quebec obstetrician who works in a street clinic in a Palestinian refugee camp.

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