Indie Sales Boards Directors’ Fortnight-Bound Ukrainian Film ‘Pamfir’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest in the early hours of Sunday in a clear show of support for the war-ravaged nation.

EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Cochran, the American rock n roll star behind songs such as “Twenty Flight Rock” and “Summertime Blues,” is getting the feature documentary treatment.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films, which is presenting six movies at the Cannes Film Festival, will be attending the market with a pair of hot new titles, French director Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and Israeli helmer Maya Dreifuss’s “Highway 65.”“Anatomy of a Fall” stars Sandra Hüller, the critically acclaimed German actor of “Toni Erdmann,” as an enigmatic German novelist who is arrested after the mysterious death of her husband at their chalet in the French Alps. The court case examines every aspect of the relationship she had with her husband, while her visually impaired son is called to testify as a witness.The movie will re-team MK2 Films with Triet, whose latest film “Sybil” competed at Cannes.

Vincent Cassel will reunite with David Cronenberg for “The Shrouds,” a new thriller from the director of “A History of Violence” and “Dead Ringers.” The film, which Cronenberg will write as well as direct, centers on Karsh (Cassel), an innovative businessman and grieving widower, who builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.Cassel and Cronenberg previously teamed up on “Eastern Promises” and “A Dangerous Method.” Their latest collaboration seems very much in the same envelope-pushing vein. According to the official longline for “The Shrouds,” Karsh’s revolutionary business is on the verge of breaking into the international mainstream when several graves within his cemetery are vandalized and nearly destroyed, including that of his wife.

Marta Balaga Paris-based Celluloid Dreams has boarded Antonio Lukich’s upcoming feature “From Ukraine to Luxembourg,” currently in post-production and aiming to premiere in the fall.The Ukrainian director debuted in 2019 with “My Thoughts Are Silent,” a dramedy about a sound recordist asked to record animal sounds from Western Ukraine. But here is the catch: his mother decides to join him. The film was awarded a Special Jury Prize at Karlovy Vary’s East of the West section.In “From Ukraine to Luxembourg,” starring Ramil Nasirov, Amil Nasirov, Natalia Gnitii and Liumyla Sachenko, two twin brothers have to deal with the disappearance of their father.

Ben Croll To the degree that a global sales division can shape its own image, Pathé’s international arm has built and bolstered its current brand around strong IP, recognizable faces and unbelievable but true stories.To see those elements in play, one need only look to last year, when projects including Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” and Martin Bourboulon’s “Eiffel” lifted from world and film history as they showcased stars such as Virginie Efira, Romain Duris and Emma Mackey, while collectively finding homes in more than a hundred international territories. (In the U.S., for example, “Benedetta” sold to IFC Films, while “Eiffel” went to Blue Fox Entertainment.)To witness those same imperatives, but supercharged, one need only glimpse Pathé’s 2022 slate, which goes long on hometown IP and star power.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorCannes Critics’ Week film “The Woodcutter Story” has debuted its trailer. It’s the feature film directorial debut from Mikko Myllylahti, the writer of Cannes Un Certain Regard winner “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki.” The film is being sold by French sales outfit Totem Films.“The Woodcutter Story” centers on Pepe, a woodcutter in an idyllic small town in Finland.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilms Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom”) has acquired four films set to world premiere at Cannes, including Albert Serra (“The Death of Louis XIV”)’s “Pacifiction” which will compete in the 75th edition’s Official Selection. The Berlin-based international sales banner has also acquired rising Morrocan helmer Maryam Touzani (“Adam”)’s “The Blue Caftan” and Costa Rican director Ariel Escalante Meza’s “Domingo and the Mist” which will both play in Un Certain Regard; as well as Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues (“The Ornithologist”)’s “Will-O’-The-Wisp,” set for Directors’ Fortnight.“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.

Manori Ravindran International EditorA new documentary about “The Power of the Dog” director Jane Campion has been picked up for sales by WestEnd Films and Cinephil.Directed by César Award-winning “Since Otar Left…” helmer Julie Bertuccelli, “Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman” is screening as part of the Cannes Classics line-up.The New Zealand director was the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, for “The Piano,” and this year won the best director Oscar for her Netflix western “The Power of the Dog.”  Bertuccelli’s documentary on the 68-year-old filmmaker, which spans 40 years, is described as “the portrait [Campion] deserves, in a film that is unapologetically subjective and offbeat, very much mirroring [Campion’s] own trailblazing journey in cinema and life.” The film is produced by Academy Award nominee Estelle Fialon (“The Gatekeepers,” “Flickering Ghosts of Loves Gone By”), and crew members include editors Laure Gardette (“Capernaum,” “Polisse”) and Svetlana Vaynblat (“Flickering Ghosts of Loves Gone By”), as well as César Award-winning sound editor and mixer Olivier Goinard (“Adolescentes,” “Le Chant du Loup”).“Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman” is produced by Les Films du Poisson, which had three films in Cannes in 2021. The outfit recently produced the French remake of Hagai Levi’s “In Treatment,” with showrunners Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, which became French broadcaster ARTE’s most watched broadcast with more than 60 million viewers.Bertuccelli said of her documentary: “Jane is the director for whom I have the most admiration and with whom I feel a genuine connection.

AS Monaco defender Benoit Badiashile has revealed he has been in contact with Premier League clubs as he finds himself linked with Manchester United again.

Jennie Punter Last week Darya Bassel, the curator of Docudays UA’s industry platform, returned to her home in Kyiv and found herself smiling “like a crazy person” to be back at work and resuming something of a daily routine. “I’m still sitting 12 hours a day with my laptop,” she said during Slava Ukraini, an early morning session that kicked off Day 2 of Hot Docs’ Industry LIVE conference.“There are just some additional tasks on my to-do list,” she continued.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentUrban Sales has nabbed world rights to “Hug Me – The Movie,” an English-language animated feature directed by Anna Błaszczyk. The pre-school movie is produced by Animoon, the Polish company behind “Even Mice belong in Heaven.”Urban Sales, the Paris-based banner previously known as Urban Distribution International, will host the market premiere of the movie at Cannes’ Marché du Film.An eco-friendly tale, “Hug Me” follows the adventures of a bear cub and his papa bear as they search for honey to prepare a birthday cake for the little one.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSND has boarded “The Braid,” an adaptation of Laetitia Colombani’s bestseller which is currently shooting in Italy, Canada and India with Kim Raver (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Fotini Peluso (“Romanzo famigliare”) and Mia Maelzer (“Beyond the Clouds”). Colombani is directing the film based on her book which sold more than two million copies worldwide and was translated in 40 languages.

LONDON -- “The sirens interrupted our sleep, grabbed in two suitcases everything that is in the past, then go!” sings Antytila frontman Taras Topolia on the Ukrainian band’s new collaboration with Ed Sheeran.It’s a reworked version of Sheeran’s hit single “2step." Topolia has added a new verse and created a video to promote the remix. The version was released Monday.“I decided to explain in the lyrics how it was the first day of the war for me and for millions of Ukrainian people,” the singer-songwriter — and now soldier — told the Associated Press on Tuesday, talking from Ukraine, on the frontline of the war against the Russian invasion.In the music video, Topolia leans against the side of a military vehicle during a patrol with his battalion, the reality of life right now for this recording artist turned soldier.“We were doing our job.

Ed Sheeran has released another remix of ‘2Step’, this time in collaboration with Ukrainian band Antytila. Proceeds from the new track will go to the Ukrainian Association Of Music Events’ Music Saves UA campaign, raising money for humanitarian efforts in the country.Antytila first contacted Sheeran last month, asking to be included in ITV’s Concert For Ukraine.

Newen Studios’ upcoming John Galliano feature doc from  Oscar-winning One Day in September and Whitney director Kevin Macdonald will be launched to buyers at Cannes’ Marché du Film later this month.

Ukraine are already the firm favourites to take victory at the Eurovision Song Contest in a fortnight’s time with their entry Kalush Orchestra.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorNew Europe Film Sales has announced the first sales for Cannes Un Certain Regard-selected “Godland,” directed by Iceland’s Hlynur Pálmason.The film was picked up in France by Jour2Fete, and the movie was also acquired by three distributors that worked on Pálmason’s Cannes Critics’ Week title “A White, White Day” – Benelux rights were sold to Imagine, Poland was picked up by New Horizons Association and Australia/New Zealand was picked up by Palace.The film is set in the late 19th century, when a young Danish priest travels to a remote part of Iceland to build a church and photograph its people. But the deeper he goes into the unforgiving landscape, the more he strays from his purpose, the mission and morality.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBrussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired pair of French movies, “The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou” and “Magdala,” which will world premiere in the Cannes sidebar, ACID. “The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou” is the feature debut of Lucas Delangle, who previously worked with Claire Simon on “The Competition,” among other films. Set in a small village in the French Alps, the film follows a young man, Jacky Caillou, who lives with his loving grandmother Gisele, a magnetic healer.Produced by Charles Philippe and Lucile Ric at Les films du Clan, the film stars newcomer Thomas Parigi and rising French talent Lou Lampros (“The French Dispatch,” “Peaceful”).