Versatile adds La Patota to TIFF slate

Paris-based sales agent Versatile has picked up Argentine Santiago Mitre’s social thriller La Patota about an idealistic lawyer who is attacked by a gang while doing charity work in an impoverished border-town. 

Other additions to Versatile’s TIFF slate include France’s Jérôme Bonnell’s upcoming A Trois, On Y Va, a love triangle comedy starring Anais Demoustier, Sophie Verbeeck and Félix Moati.

Mitre’s second film after The Student, which won the Locarno’s special jury prize in 2011, La Patota has just started shooting in Misiones in north-east Argentina, with Argentine actress Dolorès Fonzi in the lead role.

Inspired by late compatriot filmmaker Daniel Tinayre’s 1960 classic, it revolves around lawyer Pauline who ditches a glittering career in Buenos Aires to help the inhabitants of her impoverished hometown on the Argentine border with Paraguay and Brazil.

Within days of her arrival, she is brutally attacked by a vicious, local gang. Rather than fleeing back to the city, she decides to remain and stand by her social convictions.

“We were very moved and impressed by the script, really felt something special. Combined with Mitre’s direction, which we discovered in The Student, we will surely have the honour of presenting a major Latin American film next year,” said Pape Boye, co-chief of Versatile alongside Violaine Pichon.

The film is produced by La Union de los Rios production – Mitre’s company with Agustina Llambi Campbell and Alejandro Fadel – and co-produced by Walter Salles’ Rio de Janeiro-based VideoFilmes and Full House, the Paris-based production house of Didar Domehri, Gael Nouaille and Laurent Baudens. Ad Vitam have already acquired French distribution rights.

Bonnell’s provisionally titled A Trois, On Y Va, which comes hot on the heels of his award-winning 2013 romantic comedy Just A Sigh, is produced by Edouard Weil of Rectangle Productions, whose recent credits also include Benoit Jacquot’s Three Hearts and Me, Myself and Mum.

“We’re very excited to start collaborating with Edouard Weil and Rectangle Productions and to be representing Jérôme Bonnell for the first time after his critically acclaimed Just A Sigh. With A Trois, On Y Va, Bonnell succeeds in renewing the love triangle exercise, giving his characters great vitality and precious touching moments.”

Other titles on Versatile’s TIFF slate include Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s child abduction drama Dearest which will screen as a Special Presentation at TIFF, Sebastian Silva’s Nasty Baby and Helene Zimmer’s coming of age drama Being 14, which are both in post-production, as well as festival favourites Gente de Bien and Blind.