Pyramide acquires TV drama Cromo

Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).

“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.

Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in TIFF’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.

It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.

“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.

“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are having fun playing with the series format.”

The acquisition, he added, marks a continuation of Pyramide’s long-standing relationship with Puenzo.  The company sold both her previous features XXY and The German Doctor (Wakolda).

The miniseries was originally brought to Pyramide by its former head of sales Lucero Garzon.

The Paris-based, Mexican-born sales executive left the company earlier this year to set up her own company specialising in co-productions between Europe and Latin America.

Eco-thriller with a twist

Sibling collaborators Lucía and Nicolas Puenzo created Cromo under the Historias Cinematograficas banner, the Buenos Aires-based production house set up by their Oscar-winning director father Luis Puenzo.

The siblings directed episodes of the series alongside Pablo Fendrik, director of the Gael Garcia Bernal-starring jungle-set thriller El Ardor which premiered in Cannes in 2014.

The cast includes Germán Palacios, Guillermo Pfening, Emilia Attias, Alberto Ajaka and Malena Sanchez.

It is based on the real stories of a team of scientists that set out to expose environmental crimes in northern Argentina.

The drama revolves around idealistic scientist Valentina, who travels to the swamp town of Corrientes in northern Argentina to test the local water supply in a bid to expose environmental crimes.

Relying on remote support from her student Nina, who is analyzing the data from her potentially contaminated samples, Valentina embarks on a mission into the dangerous Iberá wetlands.

Meanwhile, Valentina’s husband Diego and his research partner Simon are on an expedition of their own at the South Pole, but their work is interrupted by the news that something’s gone wrong for Valentina.

As they rush to the wetlands, hoping they are not too late to keep her safe, evidence of an ecological cover-up comes to light — as does the truth about a love triangle that threatens to break the bond of trust between Diego and Simon.

Pyramide remains focused on film

Lagesse said it was too early to say whether Pyramide would take on sales of other TV series in the future.

“It’s the first time we’ve done a series. If it goes well and the sales team enjoy it, which is important, why not? but for now we remain focused on selling films aimed at a theatrical distribution,” he said.

Pyramide’s sales team, now headed by former Films du Losange exec Agathe Valentin, will be out in force in Toronto.

Its other TIFF titles include Argentine filmmaker Pablo Aguero’s Eva Doesn’t Sleep, revolving around the strange odyssey of Eva Peron’s corpse following her death; documentary Je Suis Charlie – L’Humour à Mort and Berlin Silver Bear winner The Pearl Button, which screens in the Masters section.