Fund's films drive sales

Many feature films supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond found international buyers in Cannes.

Ole Bornedal's family thriller The Substitute handled by Nordisk Film International Sales was the star title on their line-up, selling to France (Zylo), Bulgaria (Pro Films), Turkey (D Productions), Taiwan (Hwa-Jaan Films), Estonia (Estin Film) and Lithuania (Skalvija). Mirus by Norway's Marius Holst sold to the US (Olive Films), Greece (Rosebud) and Benelux (A Film), and Reprise continued its phenomenal career with new sales to France (Malavida) and Australia (Mad Man).

Added at the beginning of the market to their Cannes listing, Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth had distributors queueing for information at Trust Film Sales' desk at the Scandinavian Terrace. The SEK 70m English language film was pre-sold to Middle East (Phars Film) and Greece (7 Video). Island of Lost Souls by Nikolaj Arcel was sold to Middle East (Phars Film), Turkey (Horizon), Mexico (Cine Video), and Greece (Videorama). Nina Frisk was sold to Japan (Amg Ent.) and Turkey (Horizon).

May 22 was Svensk Filmindustri's key date in the Cannes calendar with stars of Peter Flinth's Arn-the Knight Templar Joackim Nätterqvist, Stellan Skarsgård, Sofia Helin, Vincent Perez and Simon Callow attending a promotional package while buyers were invited to view a promo-screening of the film. According to SF's head of International sales Ann-Kristin Westerberg who shares sales with Telepool in Germany, deals were closed with Thailand and Viet-Nam and negotiations were under way with Korea, China, Brazil, and Benelux. The film might be ready in time for RomeFilmfest or Toronto.

Germany's MDC International did good business on the Finnish film A Man's Job by Aleksi Salmenperä sold to Norway (Sandrew Metronome), Estonia (Estin Film), Taiwan (Cineplex) with deals pending for France and Germany. The film released by Sandrew Metronome in Finland is one of the biggest local hits with 50,000 admissions from 13 prints.

The Finnish suspense drama Black Ice by Petri Kotwica (Homesick) was picked up by Bavaria Film International for world distribution outside of Finland and Norway. "The film is a German/Finnish co-production, so we heard about the project through the German production company Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv", said BFI's co-managing director Thorsten Schaumann. The film has a very interesting story of jealousy and a quality cast and crew, so we saw a real international potential in it". Sandrew Metronome will release it in Finland on October 19, 2007.