"Sony Pictures Classics has snapped up North American rights to writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's East German-era drama "The Lives of Others" (Das leben der anderen) from Beta Cinema. Pic, which swept the German Film Awards earlier this month, is a hard-hitting look at communist East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret police, whose widespread domestic surveillance of citizens created a climate of fear and distrust at all levels of society for 40 years, until its power ended abruptly with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989..." (full details)
"Lionsgate has snapped up North American rights to "Trade," starring Kevin Kline. Jose Rivera ("The Motorcycle Diaries") adapted Peter Landesman's New York Times Magazine article about the sex trafficking biz. Roland Emmerich and Rosilyn Heller produced the project, which was previously titled "Welcome to America." German-born helmer Marco Kreuzpaintner ("Sommersturm") directed..." (full details)
"The Weinstein Co. has acquired North American, Australian and New Zealand rights to Israel Adrián Caetano's Argentinean fact-based thriller "Buenos Aires 1977" (Cronica de Una Fuga), which will screen Saturday at Cannes. The film tells a true but little-known story of the goalkeeper of a minor soccer league (Rodrigo de la Serna) who was kidnapped by a fascist Argentinean government squad and sent to a detention center. After four months of physical and mental torture, and facing possible execution, he bands together with three other young men to plan his escape..." (full details)
"The Weinstein Co. has acquired rights to Adrian Caetano's "Chronicle of Escape" (Cronica de una fuga) from Gallic banner Wild Bunch. TWC takes rights for North America, Australia and New Zealand. Pickup marks the first project under TWC's new Latin American fund, a partnership with Buenos Aires-based Eduardo Costantini Jr. to promote Latam cinema. The political thriller follows a group of youths who escape from a detention center during a dictatorship. Argentine helmer Caetano penned the pic with Esteban Student and Claudio Tamburrini..." (full details)
