Emmanuelle

Source: Altitude Film Distribution

‘Emmanuelle’

Altitude Film Distribution has picked up a raft of titles to release in UK-Ireland in the next six months, including Audrey Diwan’s Emmanuelle, which is the opening film of the San Sebastian film festival in September.

Noemie Merlant, Naomi Watts, Jamie Campbell Bower and Will Sharpe star in Emmanuelle, about a woman’s erotic fantasies when she travels to Hong Kong on a business trip. 

The Veterans is handling sales with Pathe releasing in France on September 25. Neon has North American rights.  

The film is Diwan’s English-language debut and is based on Emmanuelle Arsan’s French novel about a sexually adventurous heroine and her explicit erotic fantasies. The story was previously adapted into a 1974 film directed by Just Jaeckin. 

Altitude has also acquired Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles’ Venice-tipped I’m Still Here, his first narrative feature in more than a decade. Set during the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1971, it reunites Salles with Fernanda Montenegro, the star of his 1998 Golden Bear winner Central Station. Fernanda Torres also stars. 

Altitude secured UK-Ireland rights at script stage, with Sony Pictures Classics taking the film for the US.

Producers include VideoFilmes, RT Features and Mact Production.

Also new to the slate is Karan Kandhari’s Directors’ Fortnight title Sister Midnight, sold by Protagonist Pictures. The Mumbai-set feature follows an oddball couple in a newly arranged marriage. Producers are the UK’s Alastair Clark for Wellington Films, Anna Griffin for Griffin Pictures, with India’s Alan McAlex. Backing came from Film4 and the BFI.

Altitude is also releasing Alex Gibney’s documentary In Restless Dreams: The Music Of Paul Simon, for which the company is also handling sales. The musical biography follows the making of Simon’s new album, and features never-seen-before footage from across the American singer’s career. Producers are Gibney, Erin Edeiken, David Rahtz and Svetlana Zill. 

Further down the line, Altitude is distributing in-house production Turbulence, directed by Swiss No Way Up filmmaker Claudio Fäh. The film is billed as a high-octane action thriller about the trip of a lifetime in a hot air balloon for a married couple that turns into disaster.

As previously announced, Altitude is unleashing blur: To The End in cinemas tomorrow (July 19), followed by concert film blur: Live At Wembley on September 6, plus Christopher Zalla’s Sundance award winner Radical, about a bold teacher in a neglected Mexican border town, on August 6.

“We’re in the business to release theatrical movies, and with the slate we’ve put together, I think that’s loud and clear,” said Altitude founder and chairman of Altitude Media Group Will Clarke.