Rikke Ennis, TrustNordisk CEO confirmed the trend. “Although the general feed-back from the market in general was that the buyers were reluctant to buy, we felt great interest in most of our line-up. Sales were made on Erik Skjoldbjaerg’s Pioneer, Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s Ragnarok, Per Hanefjord’s The Hidden Child, Mikkel Nørgaard’s Keeper of Lost Causes, Jens Jonsson’s Life deluxe (Easy Money 3) and Teresa Fabik’s Love and Lemons. We have and will announce sales on most of the titles in the coming days, but most surprising was the feed-back on several of our presales titles: Pernille Fischer Christensen’s Someone you Love swept the buyers away and we are in negotiations with several distributors, The Prize Idiot was closed in several territories (to be announced soon) Kristian Levring’s The Salvation was the talk of the town and will be the next new Nordic blockbuster hitting the market, We are the Best sold as well to some territories and distributors were very excited to have Lukas Moodysson doing a Swedish language film again. So all in all we are very satisfied and can't wait to show more in Toronto and AFM.”
The Swedish film We are the Best introduced to buyers as a 3-minute promo was snapped by UK distributor and Moodysson fan Metrodome. Previous deals on the Memfis Film production had gone to Benelux, Switzerland and former Yugoslavia. The Norwegian thriller Pioneer was acquired by TrustNordisk regular client Arrow Films for the UK, as well as Benelux (Lumiere), Japan (Nettai Museum) and Korea (Focus & Company).
SF International’s Head of International Sales Anita Simovic was very pleased with buyers’ positive reactions to Per Fly’s Waltz with Monica. On top of France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, South Korea, new sales were signed with Japan, Greece, Taiwan, with discussions going on for Australia and the US. The Norwegian period film Victoria had been sold earlier to Russia and Taiwan and was closed in Cannes with Greece.
Among the crime offerings Lasse Hallström’s The Hypnotist was sold to one of the few remaining territories-Brazil, while the TV series Crimes of Passion based on Maria Lang’s novels went to France.
On the pre-selling market, Ole Bornedal’s ambitious historical TV series and feature film 1864 received very good responses in particular from English language territories and Benelux. Then the Swedish crime project Tommy from Tarik Saleh (Metropia) was also popular among buyers. “The genre, Tarik’s reputation and the attractive cast make it an interesting bet and we hope to screen it at a major autumn festival,” said Simovic.
Yellow Affair’s Miira Paasilinna said all her screenings were full for her market titles including the Swedish thriller Us, romantic comedy Home, Finnish BO comedy hit 21 Ways to Ruin a Marriage,. “We are negotiating some deals on the titles and wrapped up already pre-Cannes sales for US to Japan, South Korea and Australia (TV).”