-Official DDA Press Release-
FOCUS FEATURES INTERNATIONAL SECURED ROBUST SALES ON KEVIN MACDONALD’S BLACK SEA STARRING JUDE LAW
66th CANNES, 2013 – Alison Thompson, co-president of Focus Features International announced numerous sales on Academy Award and BAFTA-winning director Kevin Macdonald’s (Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) heist thriller, Black Sea starring two-time Academy Award-nominee Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes, Anna Karenina). In a multi territory deal Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisition (SPWA) acquired Germany, Austria, German speaking Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Latin America. Backup Media invested against distribution rights in France, Benelux and French speaking Switzerland; E-Stars acquired China; Top Films the CIS; E1 Australia and New Zealand; Lev Cinema Israel; Ster-Kinekor South Africa; and Focus Features International is currently fielding offers in several other territories.
With a screenplay by Dennis Kelly, Black Sea is co-produced and co-financed by Focus and Film4. Focus holds the worldwide rights – excluding U.K. free-TV rights, which are held by Film4.
Kevin Macdonald and Charles Steel are producing the film which stars Law as a modern-day submarine captain who is laid off by the salvage company he works for. Desperate to get even with his former employers and to prove himself, he is approached by a shadowy backer. Handed command of a submarine that is barely seaworthy, he is to rally a gang of English and Russian die-hard seafarers, outcasts and/or psychopaths all, on a mission. Their quarry is a storied sunken submarine, said to be loaded with lost gold, lying at the bottom of disputed waters in the Black Sea. The captain and his crew will have to go to the depths – in more ways than one – to get the loot. The closer they get to the prize, the riskier it becomes to trust one another.
The Focus Features International slate also includes Asif Kapadia's untitled Amy Winehouse documentary; the true-life dramatic thriller Kill the Messenger, to be directed by Michael Cuesta and star Jeremy Renner; seven-time Academy Award®-nominated writer/director Mike Leigh’s new film, starring Timothy Spall as the painter J.M.W. Turner; Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, starring Cate Blanchett and Alec Baldwin; the psychological thriller Oculus, directed by Mike Flanagan; Closed Circuit, the suspense thriller directed by John Crowley and starring Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall; and Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Ruairi Robinson’s thriller The Last Days on Mars starring Liev Schreiber, Olivia Williams, and Romola Garai, which held its world premiere at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival in Directors’ Fortnight.
-Official DDA Press Release-
Edited by Vanessa McMahon