MK2 takes on sales of LaBruce’s Gerontophilia, Langseth’s Hotel

MK2 has picked up provocative, Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce’s unconventional romantic comedy Gerontophilia about a straight teenager who develops feelings for an 80-year-old man.

“It’s marks something of a departure for LaBruce. It’s his first romantic comedy and should appeal to a far larger public than previous films,” commented MK2 sales chief Juliette Schrameck who was behind the acquisition.

The picture’s Canadian producers New Real Films and 1976 Productions are currently seeking post-production finance on crowd-funding site Indiegogo. Backers are being offered a signed copy of LaBruce’s memoir The Reluctant Pornographer.

In a director’s statement on the site, LaBruce says the film takes inspiration Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude, The Last Detail as well as other Jack Nicholson-starrer One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

“It takes as its subject a love affair of sorts between an eighty year old man and an eighteen year old boy: two old souls who, had they met each other somewhere else along the space/time continuum, might have become the perfect couple,” explains LaBruce.

MK2’s other pre-Berlin pick-ups include Swedish director Lisa Langseth’s Hotel reuniting the director with A Royal Affair star Alicia Vikander, who also starred in her debut title Pure.

Vikander plays a young woman who joins a therapy group when her perfect life falls through which she discovers the joys of rebooting her persona in the anonymity of hotels. Stockholm-based B-reel Film is producing with the backing of the Swedish Film Institute. 

MK2 said it would also unveil first images of Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm, based on Michel-Marc Bouchard’s play Tom À La Ferme. Dolan stars as a young man mourning the death of his lover, who visits the dead man’s conservative hometown in the provinces.

MK2, which is co-producing with the director’s Canadian Mifilifilms production house, describes the picture as a psychological thriller about lies and their consequences.

The Paris-based mini-major released details of its pre-Berlin pick-ups ahead of Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris at which it will market premiere Yann Coridian’s romantic comedy Nuts.

The film stars Eric Elmosnino as a former psychiatric patient desperate to win back the love of life. It is produced by Tonie Marshall’s Tabo Tabo Films.