EXCLUSIVE: Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary world premieres as a special screening in Official Selection.

France’s ARP Seléction is the first distributor to pick up Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary Maidan which is having its world premiere as a special screening in Cannes’ Official Selection.

Speaking exclusively with ScreenDaily, Maria Choustova-Baker of the film’s production company Atoms & Void said the ARP had acquired rights to French-speaking territories worldwide, and the film has also been sold to Against Gravity (Poland), Cinema Delicatessen (The Netherlands) and Arthouse Traffic (Ukraine).

She added that ARP Seléction will release the film theatrically in France on May 23.

Shot as events unfolded in Kiev from mid-November 2013, Maidan is one of the first projects from the Dutch-based production outfit Atoms & Void which Loznitsa set up with Choustova-Baker last year.

The company, which is also handling world sales on Maidan, first produced the 20-minute short documentary Letter  which won the Golden Dragon and Prix EFA at last year’s Krakow Film Festival and was nominated for the European Film Award’s best short film category.                   

Atoms & Void also oversaw production of Reflections, Loznitsa’s contribution to the omnibus film The Bridges of Sarajevo which will also be shown as a special screening in Cannes.

The company is currently involved in the development of Babi Yar, Loznitsa’s third feature film after My Joy and In The Fog.

This project will centre on the massacre in the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev in September 1941 when 30,000 Jews were killed by Nazi troops over a three-day period.

Principal photography on Babi Yar is now set to begin in summer 2015, Choustva-Baker said. 

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