Animal Horse

Justice and vengeance become entwined in “Michael Kohlhaas,” Arnaud des Pallieres’ stolid treatment of Heinrich von Kleist’s influential novella about a 16th-century horse merchant whose mistreatment by those in power leads to an unholy uprising. Kleist’s direct language and straightforward storytelling are nowhere in evidence in Pallieres’ narratively challenged adaptation, featuring a French-speaking Mads Mikkelsen... Read more »

Sundance Selects has acquired its fourth film of the Cannes Film Festival, making a deal for North American rights to writer-director Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant. Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas and Sean Gilder star, and the pic was produced by Tracy O’Riordan with the backing of British Film Institute and Film4. It premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the fest. The contemporary fable is about about a 13-year-old boy (Chapman) and his best friend (Thomas). Excluded from school and outsiders in their own neighborhood, the boys meet a local scrapdealer (Gilder). They begin collecting scrap metal for him using a horse and cart but tensions eventually build among the trio, leading to a tragic event that transforms them all. Sundance Selects already closed deals here for U.S. rights to a pair of competition titles, François Ozon’s Young & Beautiful starring Marine Vacth and Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is The Warmest Color. It also landed U.S. rights to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night, which is in preproduction with Marion Cotillard starring. The deal for Selfish Giant was negotiated by Sundance Selects/IFC Films’ Arianna Bocco with Mike Goodridge of Protagonist Pictures on behalf of the filmmakers.