Trinity CineAsia has secured UK and Ireland rights to Chinese drama Black Dog, winner of this year’s Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, in a deal with Playtime.
Directed by Guan Hu, the feature was released in China on June 15 and will open in UK and Irish cinemas on August 30.
It marks the second Cannes acquisition for Trinity CineAsia, which previously picked up Hong Kong action drama Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In ahead of its premiere in the Midnight Screenings section of the festival last month.
The distributor also handled the UK release of Guan’s previous film, The Eight Hundred, opening the war drama on more than 60 screens during the Covid-19 pandemic in September 2020.
Black Dog follows a former convict who forms an unlikely connection with the titular animal, as he clears strays in his remote hometown on the edge of the Gobi desert before the 2008 Olympic Games.
Eddie Peng, Jia Zhangke, Tong Liya and Zhang Yi lead the cast, with Liang Jing as producer. The Seventh Art Pictures, Huayi Brothers and Momo Pictures are among the backers. Memento Films Distribution is set to release in France.
Chinese director Guan, whose crime drama Mr Six was the closing film of Venice in 2015, made his Cannes debut with Black Dog. It was the first Chinese-language film to win an award in Un Certain Regard since Wang Chao’s Luxury Car in 2006 and the only Chinese-language feature to win a prize at this year’s Cannes.
It marks a prolific period for Guan, whose second feature this year is romantic drama A Man And a Woman, which is playing in competition at Shanghai International Film Festival.
At the festival this week, leading Chinese film studio Alibaba Pictures announced that Guan is set to direct Dongji Island, the true story of the sinking of armed troopship the Lisbon Maru during the Second World War.
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