Market pickups include Blackthorn and Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.

For the first time flying the Turner/Time Warner banner at Cannes, Nordic and Baltic distributor NonStop Entertainment closed deals for eight fresh features at the festival, including French director Robert Guediguian’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro), screening in Un Certain Regard.

Set up in 1998, Sweden’s Millennium Media Group (MMG), including NonStop Entertainment, NonStop Television, NonStop Sales and Prime Text International, was last year purchased by Turner Broadcasting Group Europe, to become part of Time Warner.

“Obviously the take-over means an Millennium Media Group 2.0 with more muscle,” explained MMG president Ignas Scheynius, in Cannes with CEO and company co-founder CG Andersson. “Formerly a fast-growing, mid-sized player, it has now far more resources for further development.”

In addition to The Snows of Kilimanjaro, NonStop bought French director Karim Zeriahem’s Monsieur Hubert de Givenchy from Films Distribution, profiling French fashion house Givenchy. Most pick-ups will be released in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland and the Baltics.

From Magnolia it acquired US director Rodman Flender’s Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, about The Tonight Show host’s exit from NBC, as well as Mateo Gil’s Spanish Western Blackthorn.

Korean director Na Hong-Jin’s thriller The Yellow Sea (aka The Murderer/Hwang-hae), from Showbox, was launched in the US by 20th Century Fox. From Autlook Film Sales, German director Gereon Wentzel’s El Bulli - Cooking in Progress, depicts the Spanish top restaurant.

French director Julien Leclerc’s The Assault (L’Assaut), from Elle Driver, is based on the 1994 hijacking of a French Airbus in Algeria. Film Factory’s mini-series Crematorium (Crematorio), by Spanish director Jorge Sanchez Cebezudo, describes corruption and abuse of power in the Spanish society.

NonStop Television - NonStop Entertainment’s sister company - signed for 99 new films through deals with Bankside, Showbox. Elle Driver and Scanbox. They will be aired by Nordic and Baltic TV channels TNT7, Showtime and Silver, reaching more than 20 million subscribers in the Nordic markets alone.

 

Topics