Goldcrest unveils sales slate including Emily Blunt’s The Girl

Goldcrest Films has announced the slate of six films its ramped up sales business is taking to Cannes Market, including a new Emily Blunt project in pre-production.

In late 2009, Goldcrest brought in Penny Wolf, veteran of Vestron, Granada, Capitol, HBO and Peace Arch, to re-establish and grow the company’s international sales business.

Cannes will be the first market where Wolf is bringing a full slate to discuss to buyers.

The projects on Goldcrest’s slate are:

The Girl, directed by David Riker and produced by Paul Mezey (Maria Full of Grace) and Douglas Cummins. Emily Blunt will star in the US-UK-Mexico drama, now in pre-production, about a woman whose life is changed when she meets an abandoned Mexican child.

Homework, which just wrapped shooting in New York, is a coming-of-age romance starring Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, Sam Robards and Alicia Silverstone. Producers include Jen Dana (Arrested Development) and Gavin Wiesen wrote and directs; Goldcrest will be showing a promo in Cannes.

Stricken (formerly titled A Woman Goes To The Doctor during its smash box-office success at home in The Netherlands) is Reinout Oerlemans’ adaptation of the book about the troubled marriage of a sick woman. Carice Van Houten and Barry Atsma star; the film will have market screenings in Cannes. Oerlemans also produced with Hans De Weers (Antonia’s Line).

Simone North’s I Am You (also screening in the market) is an Australian drama/thriller about a teenage obsession that turns murderous. Guy Pearce, Sam Neill and Miranda Otto star. Producers are Tony Cavanaugh and Thom Mount (Natural Born Killers).

Restrepo from writer/director/producers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) is a documentary following US soldiers in Afghanistan. The film won the grand jury documentary prize at Sundance. There will be Cannes market screenings.

The final project Goldcrest has screening in the market is Cartagena from director Alain Monne is a French-Spanish drama starring Sophie Marceau and Christopher Lambert. In colonial Colombia, a paralysed woman falls in love with a former boxing champion. Producers are Pierre Forette, Thierry Wong and Christine Gozlan.

The company expects to add several more projects to its slate before Toronto.

The sales team also includes Laura Wu (ex-Arclight) and Marcia Nunes from the New York office. In Cannes, the company is based at 25 La Croisette.

Wolf says she is open to acquisitions in any genre. “We are not pigeonholing ourselves into a particular genre, it’s all very material driven and on the one hand we are looking to work with established film makers and on the other hand with emerging talent like Gavin Wiesen in HomeWork.”

Goldcrest’s sister businesses in post-production and finance (Goldcrest Capital) also come into play. “There are three strands to the company that make us different from any one else… Sales, Post production and finance so when producers come to us we can attempt to mesh all 3 together to make a viable financial contribution to the finance of a film,” Wolf tells Screen. The company will concentrate on primarily English-language projects with budgets up to $10m, aiming for 6-10 films per year.

The company has already had success on its sales slate with Sundance hit Restrepo (which will screen in Cannes Market); National Geographic took all the TV rights to the film and will also release theatrically in the US.