Latin Horror Film ‘Eyes of the Abyss’ Pre-Sold to North America, U.K. Ahead of Blood Window Cannes Market Debut (EXCLUSIVE)

Selena Kuznikov Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired the North American rights to Alain Guiraudie’s queer crime thriller “Misericordia,” starring Félix Kysyl, Catherine Frot, Jean-Baptiste Durand, Jacques Develay and David Ayala. The film was a selection of the Cannes Premiere section at this year’s festival. The film follows Jérémie (Kysyl), a man returning to his hometown for the funeral of his former employer.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired the North American rights for Gints Zilbalodis’s animated feature Flow, following an enthusiastic standing ovation at its world premiere in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard on Wednesday.

EXCLUSIVE: Ozark‘s Felix Solia has signed on to star opposite Jacob Moran, Madeleine McGraw and Violet McGraw in The Necklace, a horror film from director Juan Pablo Arias Munoz that heads into production in Atlanta in late May.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Sideshow and Janus films (“Drive My Car”) have acquired all North American rights to Payal Kapadia‘s “All We Imagine as Light,” the first Indian film to screen in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years. The movie will world premiere on Thursday, May 23. It’s also one of only four films in the Competition directed by a woman.

Selena Kuznikov Independent cabler INSP, focused on Western programming, will premiere its original television series “Blue Ridge” July 28 at 9 p.m. ET. Johnathon Schaech will reprise his role as Sheriff Justin Wise from the 2020 movie “Blue Ridge,” which the TV series is based on.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Last Frenzy,” a comedy film about a dying man’s last hurrah, returned to the top spot in mainland Chinese cinemas in its third weekend of release. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which a week earlier had been the biggest title, slipped to fourth place. In another China disappointment for Hollywood, “The Fall Guy” opened outside the Chinese top ten.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Manila-based production outfit Parallax Studio and entertainment company Saga Film Studios have formed a joint venture that will distribute the two-part Western epic “Horizon: An American Saga” in the Philippines. The deal is the first of a number of acquisitions planned by the joint venture. The “Horizon: An American Saga” films are directed by and star Academy Award winner Kevin Costner.

Jack Dunn Umbrelic Entertainment has unveiled the cast of its upcoming horror film, “The Possession at Gladstone Manor,” which includes Caylee Cowan (“Hypnotic”), Jesse Metcalfe (“John Tucker Must Die”), Charlotte Kirk (“The Reckoning”), Darren Weiss (“Inside Man”), Barbara Crampton (“You’re Next”), William Mapother (“Blackhat”) and Lin Shaye (“Insidious” franchise). Production is currently underway in Kansas City, and AMP’s Anthony Buckner is handling international sales at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. According to an official logline, “The Possession at Gladstone Manor” picks up “when Jamie Black discovers her mother has gone missing [and] resolves to investigate by applying for the same job her mother held at Gladstone Manor.

When Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea) is beaten up outside the one dance club in the village where he grew up, his father takes up the cudgels, chivvying the local police chief into finding out who did it. It would be obvious enough to anyone but dad Dragoi (Bogdan Dumitrache) that this is a straight-up case of gay-bashing, which would seem to signal that Emanuel Parvu’s Cannes Competition title Three Kilometers to the End of the World, a slice of Romanian life, will be a worthy but familiar story of a boy’s coming out to a hostile world. Indeed, bloodied Adi with his black eyes and traumatic lesions is soon being punished, locked in his room by his parents as his desperate mother prays to the icons on the wall for guidance. We have undoubtedly been down this donkey-track before. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cultivator Films Australia, the local subsidiary of France’s Studiocanal, has begun production of “Kangaroo,” its first movie. It tells the story of Chris Barns, aka ‘Brolga,’ founder of the Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs. Previously announced in December, the film is directed by Kate Woods (“The Umbrella Academy,” “The Good Lord Bird,” “Looking for Alibrandi”) and is written by Harry Cripps (“The Dry,” “Penguin Bloom”) with Melina Marchetta and additional material from Danielle MacLean & Peta-Lee Cole-Manolis.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Los Angeles- and Bangkok-based sales firm EST N8 has bulked up its Cannes Market film sales slate with a trio of completed Asian titles. “Mash Ville” stars Jeon Sin-hwan (“The Housemaid,” “Time Renegades”) and Park Jong-hwan (“Concrete Utopia,” “Hell Is Other People”) and weaves together the lives of pseudo-religious believers and eight strangers in a rural area. When their paths cross they must fight for survival.

CGI movie technology, it is getting harder and harder to deliver that true spine-chilling internal fear that makes horror films so great.Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids may arrogantly scoff at retro scary movies, but it hasn’t always been this way.There was once a time when picture-goers were so viscerally terrified by what they were seeing on the big screen that it would trigger powerful physical reactions right there in the theater.During Jaws (1975) people fainted and vomited in the cinema during some of the gruesome scenes, while others stopped going swimming in the ocean altogether out of pure fear.Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho (1960) sparked mania during the infamous shower stabbing scene, with reports of people hyperventilating and passing out in their cinema chairs.However, one of the most horrifying movies to ever hit the big screen, causing widespread panic, fear and repulsion, is William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973).Based on William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel, the film follows the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s attempt to rescue her through an exorcism by two Catholic priests.With some wildly disturbing scenes, including some bizarre 360 degree head spinning, eerie spider-walking on the stairs and some disgusting projective lime-green vomit, it shocked those 1970s audiences to their core.One particular vulgar scene involving a crucifix — that is too crude to describe here — shocked and upset many, especially considering the percentage of people who were religious back then.The flick was so scary that even renowned Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert was at a loss for words about how it made him feel.“I am not sure exactly what reasons people will have for seeing this movie; surely

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the Cannes market, Lionsgate has taken North American rights off the table on one of the bigger-budget new packages that’ll be on sale next week: that’s action-thriller Mutiny, which will star action evergreen Jason Statham (Fast & Furious) and be directed by Jean-François Richet (Plane).

Ed Sheeran, IDLES, Alt-J and Royal Blood, and will now be safe “for years to come” after becoming the second venue to be acquired by Music Venue Properties (MVP).The ‘Own Our Venues’ initiative was first announced in April last year, and it aims to secure the long-term futures of grassroots venues by directly tackling the issue of ownership.The Ferret has signed a “cultural lease” with MVP that states that as long as it continues to operate as a grassroots live music space for the local community, then they can continue to enjoy use of the building.“This is a monumental moment for The Ferret,” said Matt Fawbert, Director & Programme Manager of the venue. “We’re extremely pleased to be able to say that our venue is now safe & secure for years to come.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales firm Finecut has inked multiple deals for horror thriller “Noise” and for “A Traveler’s Needs,” the recent Berlin prize-winner directed by Hong Sangsoo.“Noise” is a “multi-sensory and realistic horror” film that intertwines societal motifs of “floor noise” with suspenseful elements. Directed by Kim Soo-jin, the film centers around a woman with a hearing aid haunted by inexplicable sounds linked to her sister’s disappearance in her own apartment and attracting a malevolent presence.

FKA Twigs will play the mother of Jesus in a new horror film alongside actor Nicolas Cage.As per Deadline, Twigs has been cast in The Carpenter’s Son, a horror film centred around Jesus’ childhood. Twigs will play the role of “the Mother”, according to the outlet, alongside Cage, who will play “the Carpenter” and Noah Jupe, who will play “the Boy”.The film was written and directed by Lotfy Nathan, whose debut feature Harka premiered at Cannes back in 2022.According to the official synopsis of the film: “The Carpenter’s Son tells the dark story of a family hiding out in Roman Egypt.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Jeonju International Film Festival, South Korea’s second most important generalist film festival, on Tuesday announced “The Major Tones” and “Time to Be Strong” as the Grand Prix winners of its two competition sections. The festival continues until Friday. Directed by Argentina’s Ingrid Pokropek, “The Major Tones” is a mystery film about a youngster with a metal plate in her arm which begins to receive peculiar messages in Morse Code. It premiered at the Mar del Plata festival and also played in Berlin’s Generation KPlus section.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Concert documentary, “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” directed by Neo Sora, will open in mainland Chinese cinemas on May 31. The film had its world premiere in official selection at the Venice festival last year. That was followed by an acclaimed run at the New York, London and Camerimage festivals. Japanese composer Sakamoto, who was awarded an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy and two Golden Globes, had a four-decade career that stretched from techno-pop to Oscar winning scores on films including “Merry Christmas, Mr.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s some buzzy casting. Greta Lee (Past Lives) and Kingsley Ben-Adir (Bob Marley: One Love) are in negotiations to star in director and producer Louis Leterrier’s (Now You See Me) upcoming sci-fi horror film 11817.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Olivia Colman and John Lithgow head the cast of “Jimpa,” a multi-generational family tale involving a nonbinary teenager and her mother who take a trip to see their gay grandfather. The Australia- and Europe-set film is directed by Sophie Hyde, whose most recent film was the breakout “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” The film is now in its third week of production in Amsterdam and will later shoot in Adelaide, Australia and Helsinki, Finland. Rights to the film are being handled by Protagonist Pictures in much of the world and by CAA Media Finance in North America, with sales kicking off at the Cannes Market next week.