Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North America and multiple territories from mk2 Films to the upcoming Bavaria-set European animation co-production A Winter’s Journey featuring John Malkovich, Jason Isaacs, Marcin Czarnik, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and Martina Gedeck.
SPC has also boarded the project for Latin America, Middle East, Scandinavia, Australia/New Zealand, Turkey, India, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Japan, Thailand, and worldwide airlines.
Alex Helfrecht, who directed 2016 sci-fi and Edinburgh International Film Festival premiere The White King, will helm the story set in 1812 about an itinerant, lovelorn poet who undertakes a cross-mountain trek that will bring either death or a new life. Production is scheduled to begin in June in Wrocław, Poland. The cast includes newcomer Gabriella Moran.
A Winter’s Journey is an adaptation of Franz Schubert’s celebrated ‘Winterreise’ song cycle. Baritone Andrè Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide will perform the soundtrack.
Jörg Tittel and Philip Munger of London-based Oiffy are producing with Sean Bobbitt and Hugh Welchman of their Poland-based BreakThru Films, Reinhard Brundig at Germany’s Pandora Film, Benoît Roland’s Wrong Men North in Belgium, Raphaël Berdugo and Alexis Perrin in France, and Richard Mansell. Sebastien Barrillier and Yann Duboux are executive producers.
The project will combine live action with CG and painted animation from the team behind Loving Vincent. The producers said the film’s world will be the first to be built using PlayStation’s Dreams creation engine developed by PlayStation Studios’ Bafta-winning games studio Media Molecule.
Helfrecht and Tittel, who collaborated on The White King, said, “Especially in these times we feel a need to escape into a different world filled with beauty and timeless music.” Paris-based mk2 Films handes international sales.
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