Benelux distributor Lumiere has been on an acqusition drive, ramping up its release slate for next year.
One major Lumiere pre-buy is Nicole Garcia’s post-war drama From the Land of the Moon (Mal De Pierres), starring Marion Cotillard, which it acquired from French producers Les Productions du Trésor.
Another is Terrence Malick’s mind-bending, long-gestating documentary about the “birth and death of the known universe”, Voyage Of Time, sold by Wild Bunch.
The company has also taken Cristian Mungiu’s latest feature, Family Photos, also sold by Wild Bunch.
Lumiere recently swooped to pre-buy News From Planet Mars, the new family drama by French director Dominik Moll, which stars noted Flemish actress Veerle Baetens. Sales are handled by Memento Films International.
Speaking in Venice, company CEO Jan de Clercq confirmed that Lumiere has acquired the new, as-yet-untitled film from Hirokazu Kore-eda. The company has released several Kore-eda titles in the past.
Meanwhile, the company will be releasing Oscar winner Michael Dudok de Wit’s animated feature The Red Turtle, sold by Wild Bunch.
Showing its appetite for upscale French arthouse cinema, Lumiere has taken André Téchiné’s coming-of-age drama Being Seventeen (Quand on a 17 ans), sold by Elle Driver.
Lumiere will be releasing crime thriller Diamant Noir, set in the Antwerp diamond industry and the feature debut of Arthur Harari. The Belgian co-producer is Savage Films.
Another recent acqusition is Hou Hsiao-hsien’s period drama and Cannes award-winner The Assassin, from Wild Bunch.
In Venice, Lumiere has Luca Guadagnino’s competition entry A Bigger Splash, which it pre-bought at Cannes 2014.
The company also co-produced two films screening in Toronto next week: Phantom Boy, the latest animated feature from A Cat In Paris team Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol; and Cowboys, the first film from Thomas Bidegain, which premeired in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.
Lumiere’s production arm, Lunamine, is also currently in production on Peter Monsaert’s new feature, Le Ciel Flamand.
“Venice for me is interesting because I have the time to see movies here,” said De Clercq of what has been a low key Venice Film Market.
“You can talk easily with the people who are here. [The VFM] is small and also very relaxed, which is good.”
In recent years, Lumiere has had notable success with Scandinavian noir and is likely to be in prime position to buy the film version of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the fourth in the Millennium series of novels featuring Lisbeth Salander, if the film version is made in Scandinavia.
Following the 2004 death of the series creator Stieg Larsson, the new book was authored by Swedish journalist David Lagercrantz.
It has yet to be confirmed whether a film version will be filmed in Scandinavia by original producers Yellow Bird or as an English-language studio movie by Sony.
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