Belgium outfit Best Friend Forever has acquired international rights to fiction debut feature Ciudad Sin Sueño, and is talking to buyers here at the EFM.
The film, developed at Cannes’ La Résidence, is now in post. It has been called ’Sleepless City’ previously but Screen understands this is not the English-language title.
Ciudad Sin Sueño is a Spain-France production between Sintagma Films, Buena Pinta Media, Encanta Films, Bteam Prods, Les Valseurs and Tournellovision. It will be released in Spain by Bteam Pictures.
The story revolves around a 15-year-old Roma boy, who lives in the largest illegal settlement in Europe on the outskirts of Madrid. Proud of belonging to his family of scrap-metal dealers, he follows his grandfather everywhere. But as demolitions move closer and closer to their plot, and his grandfather is willing to do anything to stay, he has to choose what to let go and what to sacrifice.
“The characters in the film face the loss of a way of living, the fading of a world that, despite having been completely displaced, proudly and with dignity upholds its values and myths,” said Guillermo García López, a Screen International Spain Star of Tomorrow in 2023. “These are characters invisible to the eyes of an anxiously capitalist and globalised society. The film intimately portrays these people, who are either not represented in images or are usually depicted through stigmatisation.”
“Guillermo is one of Europe’s most promising talents,” said Martin Gondre and Charles Bin, co-founders of Best Friend Forever. ”The film brings to screen a totally unknown world that no one expects to find in Europe.”
Best Friend Forever’s Berlinale line-up is headlined by Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai’s Competition titlel Timestamp and Jun Li’s Hong Kong title Queerpanorama, screening in Panorama.
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