Sales companies Films Boutique, EastWest Filmdistribution and Beta Cinema have a raft of market premieres being lined up to screen at Cannes’ Marché du Film.

Berlin-based Films Boutique is handling international sales on two new acquisitions having their world premieres at the festival:

  • Mexican director Diego Quemada-Diez’s drama La Jaula De Oro about three teenagers from Guatemala travelling through Mexico on the way to a better life in the USA, selected for Un Certain Regard;

  • the Critics’ Week special gala presentation of Yann Gonzalez’s You And The Night, starring Eric Cantona, Alain Fabien Delon, Beatrice Dalle and Kate Moran.

Films Boutique’s Jean-Christophe Simon and his team will present the market premiere of Polish film-maker Tomasz Wasilewski’s Floating Skyscrapers, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival last month.

It has also booked slots for such Berlinale titles as Boris Khlebnikov’s  A Long And Happy Life, Denis Coté’s Vic+Flo Saw A Bear, Asli Özge’s Lifelong and Yariv Horowitz’s Rock The Casbah.

Vienna/London-based sales outfit EastWest Filmdistribution is heading to Cannes with four new acquisitions.

CEO Sasha Wieser will have market screenings of:

  • Hungarian director Zoltán Sóstai’s 3D sci-fi film Cycle which is described as “Kafka  meets Kubrick” and won the prize of Best Feature Film at the Arizona Underground Film Festival;

  • Ryszard Bugajski’s political thriller The Closed Circuit, based on true events in the Polish city of Gdansk at the beginning of the last decade and attracted more than 100,000 admissions in its first weekend on release in Poland;

  • Gustav Deutsch’s Shirley – Visions of Reality, which bring 13 of Edward Hopper’s paintings to life and screened at the Berlinale’s Forum in February.

EastWest will also offer Pol Cruchten’s feature-length poetic drama Never Die Young, which will be completed this summer. Described as “the confessions of a dope fiend,” the film’s narration has been adapted for the English language market by Christopher Hampton and by Daniel Kehlmann for the German-language territories.

Beta’s Quality Time

Cannes’ Marché du Film will also serve as the launchpad for two new pickups by Beta Cinema as part of its sales lineup:

  • Popular German actor-director Florian David Fitz reunites with production house Olga Film after Vincent Wants To Sea (Vincent Will Meer) to headline Holger Haase’s caustic comedy Quality Time (Da geht noch was), which will be released in German cinemas by Constantin Film on June 6;

  • Vivian Naefe’s adaptation of Katharina Hagena’s bestselling novel The Taste Of Apple Seeds, with Shooting Star Hannah Herzsprung in the lead.

Beta’s team will also unveil the first footage of Hungarian film-maker János Szász’s Second World War drama Le Grand Cahier (aka The Notebook), starring Ulrich Thomsen and Ulrich Matthes.

There will also be new promo-reels of such titles as Philip Stoelzl’s adventure epic The Physician, based on Noah Gordon‘s eponymous bestselling novel; Bernard Rose’s The Devil’s Violinist, featuring virtuoso violinist David Garrett as Nicolo Paganini; and the widely acclaimed Second World War drama Generation War, distributed in the US by Music Box.

In addition, market screening slots have been booked for Calin Peter Netzer’s Golden Bear winner Child’s Pose; the Lola winner Oh Boy by Jan Ole Gerster; the German/Norwegian thriller-drama Two Lives; Marc Rothemund’s drama Girl With Nine Wig; and sequel Famous Five II, based on Enid Blyton’s children’s classics.

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