MK2 Films Bows Sales on New Movies From Justine Triet, Maya Dreifuss at Cannes (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films has locked major territory deals on Leonor Serraille’s drama “Mother and Son” which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and garnered strong reviews. “Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals.

Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley are stepping out for the premiere of their new movie at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival!

Naman Ramachandran Indian actor Jackie Shroff (“Sooryavanshi”) will play the lead in Singapore-France-India co-production “Slow Joe,” it was revealed at the Cannes Film Market.Shroff will play the late Indian musician Joseph Manuel Da Rocha, known as Slow Joe, a former heroin addict and drug dealer who was born in Mumbai, was disowned by his family, heartbroken at 50 and who moved to Goa and cleaned up. On a trip to Goa in 2007, Lyon-based French musician Cédric de la Chapelle met Joe, now a frail 64-year-old who was making ends meet as a hotel room broker. Joe, also a poet and musician, sang for de la Chapelle, who was captivated by his voice and recorded some of his a cappella songs.Back in France, de la Chapelle played Joe’s songs for music producer Olivier Boccon-Gibod of Horizon Musiques, who was also entranced.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“CODA” producer Philippe Rousselet’s next movie “Maestro” has been sold to major territories by Orange Studio which hosted a market screening at Cannes. “Maestro” is adapted from Joseph Cesar’s Oscar-nominated, Cannes-prizewinning Israeli film “Footnote.” The movie is directed by Bruno Chiche and stars Yvan Attal, Pierre Arditi, Miou-Miou and Pascale Arbillot.

Naman Ramachandran The European Genre Film Foundation (EGFF), aimed at restoring and raising awareness of classic genre films in Europe and globally, launched at Cannes on Tuesday.The non-profit organization, headquartered in Stockholm, will work with film libraries, archives, rights holders, academics, film festivals and other institutions. It is modelled on Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) in the U.S.Among the first projects of the EGFF will be an academic study of historic female genre film makers in Europe and raising funds for a 4K film scanner set-up dedicated to digitizing and restoring genre films and related material that is languishing in archives.

“We didn’t do the movie to highlight women’s conditions in Iran, we didn’t do the movie to do activist work,” exclaimed Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi about his latest in competition Cannes Film Festival title, Holy Spider at the pic’s press conference this morning.

Naman Ramachandran Studio Soho International has acquired worldwide rights to “A Bird Flew In” and has launched sales at the Cannes Film Market. “Quant” producer Kirsty Bell, the founder of production company Goldfinch Entertainment, makes her directorial debut with the film, which stars Sadie Frost, Derek Jacobi, Morgana Robinson, Jeff Fahey, Frances Barber, Julie Dray, Sophie Kennedy Clark and Camilla Rutherford. It is produced by Ben Charles Edwards (“Quant”) for Goldfinch with Phil McKenzie (“Twist”) serving as executive producer.Composed of seven interlinked narratives, the film is set in the U.K.’s COVID-19 lockdown.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThere was a time, not so long ago, when Roman Polanski was the toast of the film industry in France, where the director has been living since 1978, when he fled the United States before sentencing after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.Despite the scandal and ongoing legal issues, the veteran auteur has flourished as a filmmaker in his adopted country, celebrated as a lifelong member of France’s illustrious Academie des Beaux Arts (Academy of Fine Arts) and showered with a half-dozen César Awards, the latest three of which, including best director, are for his 2019 drama “An Officer and a Spy.”But things are changing. The director’s latest César win, combined with more recent allegations of sexual misconduct, sparked outrage from French feminist groups and led to the 21-member board of the organization that oversees the Césars to resign en masse.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLeading arthouse sales company the Match Factory has acquired the rights to “Bachmann & Frisch,” a biopic about the radical Austrian writer and poet Ingeborg Bachmann, directed by Venice Golden Lion winner Margarethe von Trotta. The film stars Vicky Krieps — who appears in two Cannes Film Festival films this year, “Corsage” and “More Than Ever” — as the poet, and Ronald Zehrfeld (“Barbara,” “Phoenix”) as her partner, the Swiss writer Max Frisch.The pickup follows the international sales success for the Match Factory with Von Trotta’s “Hannah Arendt” in 2012.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorErotic love story “99 Moons,” which has its world premiere in Cannes’ ACID sidebar today, has kicked off international sales. Berlin-based M-Appeal is handling the rights to the film, which is directed by Jan Gassmann.Arthouse VOD platform Filmin has taken the rights in Spain, and arthouse distributor StraDa Films has taken the films for Greece. France and Latin America are in negotiation.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films is shooting “Curiosity Room,” a remake of Wim Wenders’s cult 1982 documentary “Room 666,” during the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by MK Prods.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“The Bourne Identity” helmer Doug Liman is attached to direct the adaptation of a chapter from acclaimed nonfiction book “Rise And Kill First.” It details how Israel’s Mossad reached out in desperation to former Nazi Waffen SS lieutenant colonel Otto Skorzeny, a favourite of Hitler’s -branded by British intelligence services as “the most dangerous man in Europe,” to thwart an existential threat to Israel’s existence.The stranger-than-fiction true story is set up at New York’s Story Syndicate (“I’ll Be Gone In the Dark,” “Britney vs Spears,” “Becoming Cousteau”), headed by Academy Award- and Emmy Award-winning Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus, and at Israel’s Abot Hameiri, producer of “Shtisel,” “The Attaché” and “Power Couple.” A Fremantle company, its co-founder, Guy Hameiri, assembled the world-class direction-production team. A Cannes Festival alum with 2010’s Palme d’Or contender “Fair Game,” Liman will also oversee development of the limited series.

Naman Ramachandran India’s long awaited location shooting incentive scheme is now a reality. At the Cannes Film Market on Wednesday, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur revealed a 30% reimbursement scheme for international productions shooting in India.The Indian federal government will reimburse up to 30% of qualifying production expenditure to a maximum of INR20 million ($260,000).

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorAnimated movie “The Amazing Maurice,” based on a Terry Pratchett novel and featuring a voice cast led by Hugh Laurie and Emilia Clarke, has sold to multiple major territories. Global Screen will present the film as a market premiere at Cannes.Territories where the movie has been picked up include Italy (Lucky Red), Spain (Flins y Piniculas), Scandinavia (Selmer Media), Portugal (NOS Lusomundo), Israel (Red Cape Distribution), Middle East (Selim Ramia & Co.), Australia and New Zealand (Icon Film Distribution), CIS and Baltics (Volgafilm), Poland (Kino Swiat), Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria (Prorom Media), former Yugoslavia (Investacommerce), Taiwan (Swallow Wings) and Vietnam (Blue Lantern).

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films, the company behind six films playing at Cannes including Leonor Serraille’s competition title “Mother and Son,” has acquired French and international rights on the Raoul Peck catalogue from Velvet Film.MK2 Films will start selling the library of films during the Cannes Film Festival. The Raoul Peck collection comprises documentary and fiction, including the HBO documentary series “Exterminate All the Brutes” which earned Peck a DGA Awards nomination.The collection also includes “I Am Not Your Negro,” the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning documentary narrated by Samuel L.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMarie Kreutzer’s “Corsage,” which premieres in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, has debuted its first clip exclusively with Variety (below). MK2 Films is handling international sales.

Ahead of its world premiere in Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, the Davy Chou directed and written feature All the People I’ll Never Be has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefStudiocanal will launch rights sales at Cannes on “Kangaroo,” the first Australia-New Zealand production from the local arm of the French film and TV group Canal Plus. The film is inspired by the real-life story of The Kangaroo Sanctuary founder Chris ‘Brolga’ Barns, who has been saving and raising baby kangaroos in Central Australia since 2005.The narrative is shaped as a heart-warming family comedy about a down-on-his-luck pro surfer who becomes stranded in an Outback town after a car accident.

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.