Salt closes key pre-sales on The Infidel

Euro TV has taken the film for France, Square One for Germany and Austria, Becker for Australia and New Zealand, Moonlight for Benelux, Svensk for Scandinavia, Sun Distribution for Latin America, Front Row for Middle East, Aqua Pinema for Turkey, Lusomundo for Portugal, and Cathay for Singapore. Entertainment In Motion clinched airline rights.

The deals were announced by Salt managing director Samantha Horley.

Written by David Baddiel, The Infidel is about an East End Muslim cab driver (played by Omid Djalili) who discovers that he is adopted — and Jewish. Richard Schiff, Yigal Naor and Archie Panjabi also star in the movie,directed by Josh Appignanesi. Arvind Ethan David’s digital production company Slingshot produced.

Revolver is handling UK distribution and plans to release The Infidel in April 2010.

Baddiel, a well-known UK TV personality and stand-up comic, made the following statement: “I’d like to thank the global cinema buyers for realising that the answer to complex religious differences between communities is everybody laughing together at a fat bloke who doesn’t quite know who he is. I’m surprised by Singapore though. Do they have either Muslims or Jews there?”

Arvind Ethan David added, “Received wisdom was that low budget British comedies don’t travel and that you can’t make a comedy about fundamentalist Muslims. It is a delight to see The Infidel prove the wise ones wrong — we’re particularly pleased by the sales to Turkey and the Middle East. We are looking forward to an Israeli deal and then to brokering a peace pact.”

Producers on the film are David and Uzma Hasan for Slingshot, Stewart Le Marechal for Met Films, and Baddiel. Djalili also acts as executive producer with Slingshot’s Cavan Ash.

Also on the Salt slate are Ireland-set comedy I Was Bono’s Doppleganger and Sundance documentary Big River Man.