The Match Factory has closed-out deals on Marco Bellocchio’s ‘The Traitor’ for most of the world following the Mafia drama’s Cannes competition premiere which has propelled the pic to the number two spot on Italy’s box office chart.
Besides Sony Pictures Classic’s previously announced acquisition of “The Traitor” for North and Latin America, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand, Match Factory has secured distribution to more than 20 territories of the well-received biopic of Tommaso Buscetta, the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence.
Meanwhile, after going on Italian release May 23, day-and-date with its Cannes world premiere, “The Traitor” on Monday came in second on Italy’s box office chart, after Disney’s “Aladdin,” pulling a strong $1.6 million in its first four-day frame via 01 Distribuzione on roughly 350 screens.
The film is now well-positioned to become Italy’s candidate for the foreign-language Oscar.
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Match Factory has sold Bellocchio’s most mainstream movie to Spain (Vertigo), Germany (Pandora), Benelux (Cinemien), Japan (Klockworx), China (Road Pictures), Poland (Gutek), Greece (Seven), Russia (Magic Films), Czech Republic and Slovenia (Aerofilms), Portugal (Alambique), Austria (Filmladen), Hungary (Mozinet), Romania (Independenta), Former Yugoslavia (MCF Megacom) and Bulgaria (Artfest), among other territories.
Budgeted at roughly $12 million, “The Traitor” is a co-production between Italy’s IBC Movie and Kavac Film with Rai Cinema, France’s Ad Vitam Production, Germany’s Match Factory Productions and Brazil’s Gullane.
Ad Vitam will release “The Traitor” in France on Nov. 6.
Pierfrancesco Favino stars as Buscetta who in 1984 decided to start cooperating with Italian and, later, American prosecutors after a war within Cosa Nostra caused the killing of members of his family. He turned against the Corleonesi faction in the first major “betrayal” within Cosa Nostra’s high-ranks. Brazilian star Maria Fernanda Candido plays his third wife, Maria Cristina de Almeida Guimaraes, the daughter of an upper-crust Brazilian lawyer, who played an important part in her husband’s decision to join the witness protection program.