Gravitas Acquires Crime-Thriller For North America; Sarajevo Cinelink Lineup & Mads Mikkelsen Honor; San Sebastian Works In Progress — Global Briefs

EXCLUSIVE: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to Van Ditthavong’s feature directorial debut All Roads To Pearla (formerly known as Sleeping In Plastic), which had its world premiere at the 2019 Austin Film Festival. The crime-thriller stars Alex MacNicoll, Addison Timlin, Corin Nemec, Nick Chinlund and Dash Mihok. The film dark coming-of-age tale is set in a small Texas town and follows a high school wrestler who gets entangled with a beautiful drifter and her psychopathic lover. Pic is produced by Derek D. Brown, Red Sanders of Red Entertainment and Van Ditthavong of goPop Films. It will be released in select theaters and available on demand September 25. The distribution deal was negotiated by Gravitas’ Brendan Gallagher and Igor Princ of Princ Films on behalf of the filmmakers. Earlier this week, Gravitas announced the acquisition of Sundance 2020 documentary The Mole Agent.

The Sarajevo Film Festival, which shifted its upcoming event (August 14-21) entirely online this week after a spike in COVID infections in Bosnia, has unveiled more of the lineup for its industry-focused CineLink program. The event, which was already due to take place in a virtual form, has selected nine features for its Work in Progress showcase, which highlights projects from Southeast Europe and the MENA region.

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The seven narrative features are: Moon 66 Questions (Greece, France), from director Jacqueline Lentzou, producer Fenia Cossovitsa, co-producer Fiorella Moretti (Blonde, Luxbox Films); Ulbolsyn (Kazakhstan, France), from director Adilkhan Yerzhanov, producer Olga Khlasheva, co-prodcuer Guillaume de Seille (Short Bothers, Arizona Productions); Vera Dreams Of The Sea (Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania), from director Kaltrina Krasniqi, producer Shkumbin Istref, co-producers Ognen Antov, Dionis Papadhimitri, (Isstra Creative Factory, Dream Factory, Papadhimitri Film Production); The Maiden’s Pond (Lebanon), from director Bassem Breche, producer Jana Wehbe, co-producer Tania El Khoury, (The Attic, Les Films de L’Alta); Streams (Tunisia, France, Luxembourg) from director Mehdi Hmili, producer Moufida Fedhila, co-producers Marie-Pierre Macia, Claire Guédea, Donato Rotunno, Yasmine Clandestino, (Yol Film House, MPM Film, Tarantula, Clandestino); Ela Ile Hilmi & Ali (Turkey), from director Ziya Demirel, producer Anna Maria Aslanoglu, co-producers Tanay Abbasoglu, Dirk Engelhardt, Öykü Canlı (Istos Films, TN Yapim, Yumurta Yapım Sanat); and Snow And The Bear (Turkey, Germany, Serbia), from director Selcen Ergun, producer Nefes Polat, co-producers Michael Eckelt, Selcen Ergun, Miloš Ivanović (Nefes Films, Riva Film, Albino Zebra Film, Set Sail Films).

Joining them are two documentaries: Easter (Georgia), from director/producer Nikoloz Bezhanishvili and Nikadocfilm; and The Last Projectionist (Palestine, Germany), from director Alex Bakri, producer Thomas Kaske, co-producer May Odeh, and Kaske Film, Odeh Films. The films will compete for three awards to support them in the post-production phase.

The festival also announced today that it will present an honorary Heart of Sarajevo, its top award, to Mads Mikkelsen. The award is given for outstanding contribution to the art of film. Mikkelsen, who was most recently seen in Thomas Vinterberg’s Cannes selected Another Round, will also host an online masterclass during the fest.

The San Sebastian Film Festival’s new works in progress Latam showcase will feature six projects from Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay. They are: Boreal by Federico Adorno (Paraguay – Mexico), Piedra Noche / Dusk Stone by Iván Fund (Argentina – Chile), La Roya / The Rust by Juan Sebastián Mesa (Colombia – France), El empleado y el patrón / The Employer and the Employee, by Manuel Nieto (Uruguay – Argentina – Brazil – France),­ Los restos fósiles / The Fossilized Remains by Jerónimo Quevedo (Argentina) and Jesús López by Maximiliano Schonfeld (Argentina – France). They will compete for two awards to support their post-production. The event is planning to run online and physical September 22-24.

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