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Last Update - June 21th 2003

Spain's Filmax closes Cannes deals
Jennifer Green in Madrid, June 5, 2003

Spain's Filmax has announced a series of deals closed at the recent Cannes market including two promising European sales on Laura Mana’s new psychological thriller Word Chain (Palabras Encadenadas) to Kinowelt for Germany and Instituto Luce for Italy.

Under senior vice president of international sales and co-productions Antonia Nava, the company also closed the final three remaining territories on Brian Yuzna’s Beyond Reanimator to the UK (Home Entertainment), Australia (Magna Pacific Entertaining) and Scandinavia (Scanbox).

Beyond Reanimator looks set to become the first of Filmax’s Fantastic Factory titles to premiere theatrically in the US this summer on an anticipated eight-screen platform release through Lion’s Gate.

If successful, it could bode well for titles on the label’s second-year slate, which Lion’s Gate also pre-bought at Cannes this year, including Yuzna’s Rottweiler, Paco Plaza’s Romasanta and ghost tales Beneath Still Waters and The Nun.

Finally, Filmax revealed the first pre-sales on Brad Anderson’s The Machinist, a roughly $12m psychological thriller starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon and currently shooting in Barcelona.

Between the AFM and Cannes, The Machinist pre-sold to: Japan (Amuse Pictures), Benelux (Paradiso), the former USSR and Baltic countries (Pyramid), Thailand (Mongkol), Greece (Spentzos), Indonesia (Menara Media), Turkey (Aqua/Pynema), the former Yugoslavia (Blitz), Israel (Noah Communications) and the Middle East (Gulf Films).

These deals follow on previously announced sales at Cannes on Jaume Balaguero’s Darkness and his forthcoming, as-yet unscripted Fragile.

Source - www.screendaily.com