UFO Distribution Acquires French Rights to Ale Abreu’s ‘Perlimps’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentDisney has revealed that it will forgo the French theatrical release of “Strange World,” Don Hall’s animated action adventure movie, which was scheduled to hit local cinemas on Nov. 23.The writing had been on the wall for the studio since France unveiled its new — and still very strict — windowing rules in late January, setting Disney’s subscription-based streaming window at 17 months following the French theatrical release of its movies.Besides the lengthy SVOD window, Disney has also been up in arms about the fact that it must temporarily pull titles from its platforms five months later so that free-to-air channels can have their own exclusive window.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentGlobal arthouse movie streamer, producer and distributor MUBI has acquired all Turkish rights to Iranian director Saeed Roustaee’s timely Cannes title “Leila’s Brothers.”A female empowerment drama set against the backdrop of a family crushed by debts linked to international economic sanctions, “Leila’s Brothers” won the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) prize for best film in Cannes’ main competition.  The film, which is Roustaee’s third feature, follows from his tense actioner “Just 6.5,” about a cop trying to pin down a drug lord.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCanal Plus has acquired French rights to “Two Summers,” a Dutch thriller series which is being sold by France TV Distribution. “Two Summers” is available on Netflix in the rest of the world, outside of French-speaking territories in Europe.Produced by Panenka, “Two Summers” will air in France on Canal Plus and on its on-demand service MyCanal. The show played at Series Mania Festival in the International Panorama selection.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Chef Mauro Colagreco of the three-Michelin star restaurant Mirazur will be attending the June 13 North American premiere of the documentary “Reinventing Mirazur” at the Tribeca Film Festival.  In a clip released ahead of its premiere in Variety, Colagreco explains the new philosophy behind the restaurant’s menus, borne out of the pandemic.As described, the doc takes “a deep dive into the life of Chef Mauro, who finds himself changing everything about his flagship restaurant after the COVID-19 pandemic halted his worldwide rise to prominence.”Forced to go into hiatus not long after his Menton, France-based restaurant was awarded the coveted three Michelin stars and the No.1 spot in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2019, Colagreco spent more time in his estate’s vast vegetable and flower garden and came up with the idea to introduce menus pegged to the cycles of the moon. Since he sourced all the restaurant’s fresh produce from his garden, where planting and harvesting were timed according to the moon’s cycles, the menus would undergo a radical change.

Manori Ravindran International EditorCannes competition title “Pacifiction,” from “Liberté” director Albert Serra, has been acquired for the U.S. by specialty distributors Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films.Serra won the Un Certain Regard section’s Special Jury Prize in 2019 for “Liberté” and cracked the festival’s official selection this year with “Pacifiction.”The film is set on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, and centers on the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official, whose role brings him to navigate both the high-end “establishment” and shady venues where he mingles with the locals.

Manori Ravindran International EditorCannes sensation “EO,” which tells the story of a donkey’s life, has been acquired for North America by Sideshow and Janus Films. The film is the latest collaboration for the U.S.

Cineflix Rights Goes On Scripted Sales Spree

Metallica made an appearance at San Francisco Giants’ baseball match with the New York Mets yesterday (May 24).The metal veterans returned to their hometown to perform the national anthem and see singer James Hetfield throw the first pitch. It’s the eighth time the band have performed the annual tradition.“It’s a tradition that we’ve missed the last two seasons, so we’re really excited for the return of Metallica Night at Oracle Park with our hometown baseball team, the San Francisco Giants,” Metallica said in a statement via Consequence.“This year marks the eighth time we’ll take the field for the National Anthem, first pitch, and a few other pre-game shenanigans.”.@Metallica played tonight’s national anthem with City Connect guitars and equipment pic.twitter.com/a6lAkV0Db2— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 25, 2022It comes a month after Jack White also took to the field at Comerica Park in Detroit to perform the US national anthem before the Detroit Tigers’ baseball game against the Chicago White Sox.The performance coincided with the release of his fourth solo album, ‘Fear Of The Dawn’.Last week, Metallica frontman Hetfield praised his bandmates during an on-stage speech in Brazil last, saying that their support “means the world to me”.“I’ve gotta tell you, I wasn’t feeling very good before I came out here,” the frontman said.

EXCLUSIVE: AMC Networks has acquired North American rights to Monsieur Spade, a one-hour drama starring Clive Owen from The Queen’s Gambit co-creator Scott Frank and City On A Hill showrunner Tom Fontana. Black Bear Television also has joined as the series’ studio and will deficit finance.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSpecialty U.S. distributors Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures have acquired Italian director Pasquale Marrazzo’s LGBTQ drama “The Neighbor” for release in North America from Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales.“The Neighbor” (which is titled “Hotel Milano” in Italy) is about two young men who are in love but get bullied by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads that makes their life impossible as hatred and intolerance seeps into the rapport between their respective families.It’s the fifth feature written and directed by Marrazzo whose debut “South of the Sun” launched from Toronto’s Discovery section in 2001.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentREinvent International Sales has closed major territory sales on “UFO Sweden,” a science fiction movie adventure from Crazy Pictures, a Swedish film collective whose past credits includes the 2018 hit movie “The Unthinkable.”Described as a mix between “X-Files” and “Stranger Things,” “UFO Sweden” is set in a small town and follows a teenage rebel placed in foster care, who suspects that her father is not dead, but has been kidnapped by UFOs. With the help from a UFO association, she is determined to find out the truth.

review, Nicholas Barber wrote that “Corsage” stylistically resembles the dreamy Kristen Stewart film “Spencer.” “Whenever the film seems to be settling into an atmospheric but conventionally good-looking period piece, Kreutzer throws in an amusing and jarring reminder of the modern world, as if Elisabeth were breaking out of her allotted role by time-traveling, momentarily, to the present day,” Barber wrote. “Corsage” follows Elisabeth around her 40th birthday at a time when her role in the empire is slowly becoming more performative and has to fight to maintain her public image by lacing her corset ever tighter and tighter.

Emilio Mayorga New York-based Kino Lorber has acquired all North American rights to horror pic “Virtual Reality,” from Argentine director-producer Hernán Findling (“Impossible Crimes”).Other deals on the pic closed by FilmSharks include Media 4 Fun (Poland), AV Jet (Taiwan) and Laon-I (South Korea). Japan, Latin America, the U.K.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Goya, Carrière and the Ghost of Buñuel,” which plays Cannes Classics this Saturday, begins with French film great Jean-Claude Carrière in a train, singing an ancient song in Occitan, the language of Provence, where he came from.Visiting Goya’s birthplace, he’ spies a cauldron and comments that there was one like that in his own family home.Towards the end of the film, surveying “The Colossus,” Goya’s painting of a giant dominating tiny people in a valley below who flee in all directions, Carrière observes that the painting capture a sense of immigration. Unlike so many of his friends, and indeed his wife,  Nahal Tajadod, Carrière notes, he will have the privilege of being buried in the same place where he was born.

Pat Saperstein Deputy EditorAfter 25 years, the Colcoa (City of Lights, City of Angels) French Film Festival has been renamed the American French Film Festival, with the 26th edition of the festival set for Oct. 10-16.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorA visit from the dead? How chic.The Cannes Film Festival sprung back into action on Tuesday night, as this year’s opening night movie, “Final Cut (Coupez!)” received a 5-minute standing ovation. The gory zombie line, which straddled a tone somewhere between “The Blair Witch Project” and “Call My Agent,” kicked off a festival where few patrons were wearing masks in these COVID times.To commemorate the 75th edition of Cannes, festival director Thierry Fremaux selected a French movie — not to mention a French jury president, “Titane” actor Vincent Lindon — to keep things local at the start of the celebration of movies in the French Riviera.

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.

Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Frémaux took part in a ‘meet the press’ session with journalists in Cannes yesterday afternoon.

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.