‘Les Miserables’ Producer SRAB Films Acquired by Asacha Media

Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” has scored U.S. distribution with Neon’s boutique label Super after making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won two major competition awards.Super will release the film in theaters, following its U.S.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Super, the boutique distribution label from Neon, has acquired U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” after it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury prize in Venice along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award. “Saint Omer” was recently shortlisted for France’s submission to the Academy Awards and will premiere at the New York Film Festival and play the BFI London Festival. Neon plans a theatrical release. “Saint Omer” is Diop’s debut fiction feature, which she co-wrote with Amrita David and Marie NDiaye, and it stars Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville and Aurélia Petit. Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral of Srab Films produced alongside Arte France Cinéma and Pictanovo Hauts-de-France.

Neon’s boutique label Super has secured U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s acclaimed drama Saint Omer, following its world premiere earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, where the film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Feature.

Naman Ramachandran “Gangs of London” producer Pulse Films has unveiled the first clip from “Name Me Lawand,” which will have its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. Directed by Edward Lovelace (“The Possibilities Are Endless”), the film is in competition at the festival’s The Grierson Award for documentaries. The documentary, filmed over four years, follows Lawand Hamad Amin, who spent his early years in Iraq unable to hear or communicate. His profound deafness meant he could not learn language, and with no access to a deaf education, Lawand grew isolated and trapped inside himself.

Trinidad Barleycorn Founded more than 25 years ago by Manuel Catteau, independent French producer and distributor ZED has become over the years a major player in the documentary field. At TV market Unifrance Rendez-vous in Biarritz, ZED revealed to Variety the acquisition of three ambitious history documentary projects, which are available for presales. “Ukraine 1933: Seeds of Hunger,” a documentary by Guillaume Ribot, produced by Les Films Du Poisson for France Télévisions, recalls the tragedy experienced by Ukrainians between 1931 and 1933: the Holodomor, the great famine organized by Stalin to punish those who refused the collectivization of the countryside and communist ideology, resulted in the deaths of more than 4 million of them.

Charlotte Dawson has posted a sweet photograph of the moment she met the late Queen Elizabeth when she was a young child. The 29 year old daughter of the late comedian Les Dawson posted a sweet newspaper clipping of herself as a youngster, dressed in her school uniform with a braid woven through her plaits as she clutched a bunch of yellow flowers and waited to meet the Queen on her Golden Jubilee in 2002. Alongside the snap, Charlotte wrote: "I have the proper picture in storage with all my dad’s memorabilia I need to dig it out as I need to frame it & tell Noah [Charlotte's 19-month old son] how wonderful her majesty Our Queen Elizabeth II was.

Knowing her worth. Davina Potratz believes she hasn’t been given her due as a cast member on Selling Sunset.

HBO Documentary Films has acquired U.S. television and streaming rights to Oscar winner Laura Poitras’s film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, fresh from its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and sneak preview at Telluride.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Pascal Breton’s European banner Federation Entertainment (“The Bureau”) has acquired a majority stake in Vertigo Films, the U.K. production company behind the hit TV shows “Britannia” and “Bulletproof.” The London-based company is also the producer of B.O. films such as “StreetDance 3D,” “The Sweeney” and award-winning titles including Gareth Edwards’s “Monsters” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Bronson.“ Founded 20 years ago by executive producers Allan Niblo and James Richardson, Vertigo is currently in post-production with Jez Butterworth’s new comedy-drama series “Mammals,” starring James Corden and Sally Hawkins for Amazon, and the 1980s-set gangster epic “A Town Called Malice” by Nick Love for Sky Max. The banner just wrapped principal photography on a new film for Sky Cinema, with further details to be announced at a later date.  

Federation Entertainment has hit the M&A trail once again by taking a majority stake in Britannia, Bronson and Bulletproof producer Vertigo Films, its first British acquisition.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Les Films Pelleas, the Paris-based banner behind Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning” (pictured), is set to produce Guillaume Senez (“Our Struggles”)’s next project, as well as the feature debut of Anne-Sophie Bailly whose short “The Midwife” is currently playing at Telluride. The Paris-based banner’s roster of completed roster includes Karim Moussaoui’s “L’Effacement,” and Annie Ernaux’s documentary “Les annes Super-8.” “Mona” revolves around around a woman in her 60’s who raised alone her disabled son and is at a point in her life where she aspires to start caring for herself. But when her son is unexpectedly having a baby, Mona finds herself with another heavy responsibility to bear.

Protagonist Pictures has closed a French distribution deal with Les Films du Losange on Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s Cannes Camera d’Or winning directorial debut War Pony.

National Geographic Documentary Films has announced the acquisition of worldwide rights to Bobi Wine: The People’s President, following its Venice Festival premiere.

Designed as something akin to a Greek tragedy for today’s moment, Venice Film Festival Competition title Athena is a torrent, an inundation, a cascade of rage, fury and frustration over the realities of life for a particular group of French families. Such conditions exist in most societies, some more dire than others, but here the wages of pent-up anger are presented with a single-minded intensity and extended duration that would be hard to exceed.

EXCLUSIVE: Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) have been tapped to lead the psychological thriller The Wasp, which BAFTA winner and two-time nominee Guillem Morales (Inside No. 9) is directing for XYZ Films.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Loco Films has acquired international sales rights to Petr Václav’s buzzed-about film “Il Boemo” which is world premiering in the official selection at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The epic period movie sheds light on the extraordinary life of Josef Myslivecek, one of the most prolific opera composers in 18th century Italy who inspired Mozart and became his friend. Speaking of the film, Václav’ said he “did everything I could in order to understand the daily life of Josef Mislivecek, his work, his social interactions, his feelings and opinions he could have had.”

France’s Asacha Media Group has acquired compatriot SRAB Films, the firm behind Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated Les Misérables.

EXCLUSIVE: Oliver Trevena (Wire Room) is the latest addition to the cast of Millennium Media’s comic book film Red Sonja, which has entered production in Bulgaria. He joins an ensemble led by Matilda Lutz, which also includes the previously announced Wallis Day, Robert Sheehan, Michael Bisping, Martyn Ford, Eliza Matengu, Manal El-Feitury and Katrina Durden.

TinyBuild has acquired a selection of Bossa Studios’ games for $3million (roughly £2.5million). Additionally, Russian Studio Konfa Games has also been acquired by the publisher for $5.4million (roughly £4.2million). The intellectual property in question includes Surgeon Simulator, I Am Fish, and I Am Bread, with the payment being upfront.

K.J. Yossman Jamie Laurenson and Hakan Kousetta’s 60Forty Films has inked an overall deal with Apple TV+, Variety can exclusively reveal. They are already in production on upcoming Apple TV+ thriller series “Hijack,” starring Idris Elba, which they are producing alongside Idiotlamp Productions and Elba’s company Green Door Pictures. “Hijack” tells the story of Sam Nelson (played by Elba), an accomplished business negotiator whose quick-thinking, smooth-talking skills become crucial when the plane he is on is hijacked. Laurenson and Kousetta have worked closely with Apple for a number of years, including on Gary Oldman-starrer “Slow Horses” (pictured above) and “The Essex Serpent,” starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston, both of which the duo lead exec produced.