Paris-based company Charades has come on board to handle worldwide sales on three films from distribution company Neon, “Spaceship Earth,” The Painter and the Thief,” and “She Dies Tomorrow.”
Charades and Neon will provide distributors with a marketing package and a replicable model to adapt on their own markets. Both outfits have already enlisted Non Stop Entertainment for Scandinavia and Madman in Australia. Additional territories are already in discussion.
“We are thrilled to be on board of this fresh and engaging initiative to take those topical films to audiences in such a particular context,” said Carole Baraton, the co-founder of Charades. “We look forward to working hand in hand with our talented friends at Neon and local distributors to replicate this very timely cinematic model.”
Tom Quinn, Neon CEO, said Charades was “helping to bring Neon films to worldwide audiences alongside partners that share our vision.”
“We look forward to working with the amazing teams at Charades, Non-Stop and Madman to create and develop release strategies and initiatives that will carry us through a global shutdown and into 2021,” added Quinn.
Matt Wolf’s “Spaceship Earth,” debuted at Sundance to strong reviews. The film follows the adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called Biosphere 2.
As announced earlier this week, Neon will launch “Spaceship Earth” on May 8 across digital platforms in the U.S. The studio plans to implement an innovative strategy, including using drive-ins and safe pop-up city-scape projections, during the coronavirus crisis. Theaters and impacted businesses will also be able to screen the film on their websites. “The Painter” and the Thief” and “She Dies Tomorrow” are yet to be dated.
“The Painter and the Thief,” directed by Benjamin Ree, also premiered in Sundance and won the world cinema documentary special jury prize for creative storytelling. The film revolves around a Czech painter, Barbora Kysilkova, whose paintings are stolen from an Oslo art gallery. Hoping to learn what happened, Barbara reaches out to one of the thieves who has been identified, Karl-Bertil Nordland, asking to paint him. Over a series of portraits and many years the two form an unlikely friendship.
“She Dies Tomorrow,” directed by Amy Siemetz, was to have its world premiere in SXSW in the narrative feature competition. The timely film depicts a contagious pandemic spreading through Los Angeles. Weaving comedy, drama and thriller, “She Dies Tomorrow” was also written and produced by Amy Seimetz.