Indie Sales has unveiled the new trailer for Elise Girard’s romantic drama Sidonie In Japan starring Isabelle Huppert and has signed deals in Germany, Switzerland and Italy ahead of the film’s premiere at Giornate degli Autori in Venice.

Out of the Box will release the film in Switzerland and Majestic Filmverleih is handling German distribution, joining the film’s French distributor Art House Films and Italy’s Academy Two.

Sidonie in Japan stars Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour in Japan. As she travels with her local editor through Kyoto’s shrines, temples and cherry blossoms, she slowly opens up to him, but the ghost of her husband follows.

August Diehl co-stars as witht Japan’s Tsuyoshi Ihara.

Shot in Japan France and Germany, Sidonie in Japan was produced by Sébastien Haguenauer’s Paris-based 10:15! Productions as a co-production with Germany’s Lupa Film, Switzerland’s Box Productions, Japan’s Fourier Films, Film-inEvolution, Mikino and Les Films du Camélia.

Girard co-wrote the film with Maude Ameline and late writer-director Sophie Fillières, who died at the end of July.

Girard made her feature debut in 2011 with relationship drama Belleville-Tokyo starring Valerie Donzelli and Jeremie Elkaim as a couple in crisis. She followed with 2017’s unlikely relationship drama Strange Birds that premiered in Berlin’s Forum and stars Huppert’s real-life daughter actress Lolitla Chammah alongside Jean Sorel.

Despite its title, Belleville-Tokyo is entirely set in Paris, but Girard’s first trip to Japan to promote the film was the original source of inspiration for Sidone In Japan. “I wanted to show what happens when a person suddenly finds themself away from home. Sidonie just happens to find herself there. It’s almost as if someone had taken her away or moved her like a piece of furniture… I had exactly the same feeling there myself.”

Indie Sales is also continuing sales on Yolande Moreau’s ensemble drama The Jolly Forgers for which the writer-director-actress won the best screenplay prize at the recent Angoulême Francophone Film Festival in France. The company is also selling Léa Todorov’s debut feature Maria Montessori about the famed educator, Jean-Pierre Améris’ unlikely friendship drama Take a Chance on Me and Teddy Lussi-Modeste’s school-set sexual misconduct story The Good Teacher starring The Three Musketeers double blockbuster star François Civil.

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