Paris-based sales company Reservoir Docs has inked new deals for Matthew Bauer’s The Other Fellow including the UK’s Bulldog Film Distribution, and has boarded Thierno Souleymane Diallo’s Berlin Panorama title The Cemetery of Cinema.
The UK deal for The Other Fellow follows sales to YES in Israel, Filmin and TV3 in Spain, Canal+ Polska in Poland, SBS in Australia and MCF Megacom for the former Yugoslavia. Bulldog Film Distribution plans to release The Other Fellow in the UK and Ireland in Q2 of this year and film will hit theatres in Sweden via Njuta Films on Friday (February 3) and in North America via Gravitas Ventures on February 17.
Australian filmmaker Bauer’s original documentary follows a diverse group of men across the globe who all share the same name: James Bond. The journey from Europe and the UK through the Caribbean, India and the USA introduces audiences to a Swedish 007 super-fan with a WWII past, a gay New York theatre director and even a man accused of murder as the film explores male identity via the moniker of the famed on-screen spy.
The film has screened at several festivals including the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, the Dinard Festival of British Cinema and the Austin Film Festival. and won the best film in the “And Action” category at the Doc Edge festival.
Bulldog’s Head of Distribution and Acquisitions Philip Hoile called the film “an entertaining crowd-pleaser full of comedy and thrilling tales as well as being an unexpectedly thought-provoking look at identity, society, race and prejudice – all through the stories of individuals who share a name with each other, as well as perhaps the most famous character in modern film and fiction.”
Reservoir Docs will continue sales for The Other Fellow at EFM where they will also market premiere new acquisition The Cemetery of Cinema, the first feature from director Diallo that will world premiere in the festival’s Panorama section The film focuses on the birth of filmmaking in Guinea and traces his country’s cinema heritage and history via film archives and personal narrative. The “modern Don Quixote tale” is a French-Guinea co-production from L’Image d’Après, JPL Productions, Lagune Productions, Le Grenier des Ombres and co-produced with the Red Sea Film Festival Foundation, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma and Lyon Capitale TV.
The story is based on a film titled Mouramani, considered to be the first film ever made by a black, French-speaking director, Mamadou Touré. However, the film remains shrouded in secrecy as no one has been able to track down a print of the film. The Cemetery of Cinema is Diallo’s attempt to find the film as he embarks on a personal quest turned road movie.
Renamed in June of 2020, previous Reservoir Docs projects include Subaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees that was named Best Documentary in Berlin in 2019, Shamira Raphaëla’s Shabu and Hans Lukas Hansen’s The Quest for Tonewood.
No comments yet