WRITTEN BY: Annika Pham
Exclusive: Production company Crazy Pictures' low budget film The Unthinkable was bought by Ascot Elite for German-speaking territories, New Select for Japan and Times Vision for China.
Exclusive: Production company Crazy Pictures' low budget film The Unthinkable was bought by Ascot Elite for German-speaking territories, New Select for Japan and Times Vision for China.
Other territories sold include Spain, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam. SF Studios International’s managing director Anita Simovic said France and Italy are in advanced negotiations. “I have rarely come across such unison positive reactions to a project from so many different distributors, regardless if they specialise in genre film or not. What makes The Unthinkable so special is the high-end visual appeal combined with the always equally popular disaster theme as portrayed in the teaser," she said.
In the film The Unthinkable (Den blomstertid nu kommer), Sweden is threatened by a mysterious attack, and Alex (Christoffer Nordenrot) is forced back to his childhood town. There, he reunites with his youth sweetheart Anna (Lisa Henni) and together, they try to survive. Nordenrot co-wrote the script with Victor Danell. The two are part of the Swedish film collective Crazy Pictures, set up with self-taught filmmakers from Norrköping, Hannes Krantz, Albin Pettersson, Olle Tholén, and Rasmus Råsmark.
“We met in college and set up our company after we shot a film for Youtube - Poetry for Fishes, which attracted a solid fan base”, said producer Albin Pettersson to nordicfilmandtvnews.com. The film buddies made another 15 shorts and decided to raise money for their first long feature The Unthinkable, via a kick-starter campaign to use their viral followers.
The campaign was hugely successful as the film – produced without support from the Swedish film Institute-collected more than SEK 800,000 (around €80,000) towards its SEK18.5m (€1.8m) budget. “After the kick-starter campaign, a lot of industry people contacted us, such as SF Studios and SF Bio that invested in the project,” said Pettersson. “We also received funding from Film i Väst and Norrköping that subsequently set up a Film Fund."
SF Studios will release it in Sweden for Midsummer in June.
Crazy Pictures’ has another Swedish film and an international project in their pipeline.