London-based sales agent MetFilm Sales has boarded feature documentary “Exposing Muybridge,” featuring Gary Oldman, about revolutionary photographer Eadweard Muybridge.
Muybridge (1830–1904) was an English photographer known for his groundbreaking work in photographic studies of motion who played a seminal role in motion picture history. His images of running horses transformed the camera into a machine of unmatched powers of perception and persuasion, and set the course for the birth of cinema. He was a complicated man whose personal story was imbued with ambition, success, loss, and even cold-blooded murder. He directly inspired numerous artists from Francis Bacon to David Hockney to Gary Oldman, who has made a passionate contribution to the documentary.
Directed by Marc Shaffer (“Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787”), the documentary had its world premiere at Doc NYC in 2021 and won best documentary screenplay at the Writer’s Guild of America Awards 2022. The film will have its market premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Market.
MetFilm Sales has already secured the first deals for the film with NonStop Entertainment (Nordics and Baltics), iWonder (Italy), Madman Entertainment (Australia/New Zealand), Filmin (Spain/Portugal) and PCCW (Hong Kong), while North America is represented by Cinetic.
Vesna Cudic, MetFilm Sales’ head of sales and acquisition, said: “We love high quality art docs and this is one of the best I’ve seen recently. The painstaking recreation of the famous running horse sequence that kickstarted the birth of cinema, using Muybridge’s method and 84 modern cameras, is exceptional, and we look forward to sharing it with international audiences.”
Shaffer also serves as a producer on “Exposing Muybridge” alongside Elisabeth Haviland James, who also edited the film, and Serginho Roosblad.
Watch the trailer here: