Tine Klint’s LevelK sells Veiko Öunpuu’s second feature to Olive Films for US distribution.

Tine Klint’s new Danish sales outfit, LevelK has sold Estonian director Veiko Öunpuu’s The Temptation Of St Tony (Püha Tonu Kiusamine) to Olive Films for US distribution.

St Tony, a Tiger competition contender in Rotterdam last week, receives its market premiere in the European Film Market later this week.

Chicago-based Olive Films specialises in foreign-language art house films and US indies and classics, seeking out “ageless stories that have been artfully conveyed”.

“Masterfully shot and edited, Öunpuu’s film is a marvellous cinematic expression of the Kafkaesque story of good and evil, without  the temptation to rigidly define ‘good’ and ‘evil’,” said  Olive Films chief Farhad Arshad, who negotiated the deal with Klint.

The film, Öunpuu’s second feature, follows a middle-aged, mid-level manager (Taavi Eelmaa) trying to tackle mounting emotional problems.

The Temptation of St Tony was the first Estonian feature ever to screen at the Sundance Film Festival and the first non-Swedish film to close Sweden’s Göteborg International Film Festival.

Õunpuu is currently directing a stage version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s play The Garbage, The City and Death.

LevelK’s line-up for the company’s first European Film Market includes Norwegian director Gunnar Vikene’s award-winning Vegas, with Norwegian Shooting Star Anders Baasmo Christiansen, and Danish director Giacomo Campeotto’s kidpic, Storm.

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