• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Youtube
  • Pinterest
  • Gplus
  • Instagram
  • Skype
Phone : + 33 1 58 51 42 95
Reel Suspects | International Sales & Coproductions
  • Home
  • On Sale
  • Projects
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact
  • Downloads
  • Search
  • Menu

Breaking News : SCREEN Reel Suspects boards Canadian horror ‘Dreamland’ ahead of Fantasia screening (exclusive)

July 13, 2019/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina
Read more
https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/dreamlandstill.jpg 893 1340 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2019-07-13 05:28:272019-12-13 05:31:04Breaking News : SCREEN Reel Suspects boards Canadian horror 'Dreamland' ahead of Fantasia screening (exclusive)

Breaking News : CINEUROPA Reel Suspects pins its hopes on Denis Dercourt’s The Teacher

May 13, 2019/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina
Read more
https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png 0 0 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2019-05-13 09:47:022019-12-13 10:26:42Breaking News : CINEUROPA Reel Suspects pins its hopes on Denis Dercourt’s The Teacher

Breaking News : SCREEN Polish historical drama ‘Sword Of God’ sells to North America (exclusive)

May 13, 2019/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina
Read more
https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/MUT3.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2019-05-13 05:33:212019-12-13 05:37:11Breaking News : SCREEN Polish historical drama 'Sword Of God' sells to North America (exclusive)

Breaking News : SCREEN // Reel Suspects bolsters EFM slate with Berlin Critics’ Week, Forum titles (exclusive)

January 27, 2019/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina
Read more
https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CFL_02-2.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2019-01-27 10:53:452019-12-13 05:23:37Breaking News : SCREEN // Reel Suspects bolsters EFM slate with Berlin Critics' Week, Forum titles (exclusive)

Breaking News : VARIETY // Smart Genre, Zombies and Throwbacks: Trends In Genre Cinema

October 27, 2018/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Smart Genre, Zombies and Throwbacks: Trends In Genre Cinema

Tendencies on display at October’s Sitges Festival, Sitges Pitchbox

By EMILIO MAYORGA
SAN SEBASTIAN — Smart genre, zombies and throwbacks to the ’70s and ‘80s are some of the current trends in genre cinema, according to some specialists in the field. It’s a cyclical dynamic now offering meaningful box office hits such as Corin Hardy’s “The Nun” or Ari Aster’s “Hereditary.” Genre cinema always attracts the attention of industry players. These are some of them.

An auteur-driven trend commands greatest consensus among experts. Matteo Lovadina, CEO of Paris-based sales and co-production company Reel Suspects, observed that some great examples recently of genre film have, “thanks to their clever storytelling,” been able to attract both auteur and genre audiences.

“Films like Joachim Trier’s ‘Thelma,’ Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’, David Robert Mitchell’s ‘It Follows’ or ‘Hereditary,’ have brought genre cinema again into focus and restored a certain credit to this hidden part of the cinematic world,” Lovadina observed.

A “pure genre player,” Reel Suspects has sold genre from its inception, witnessing large change: “Only recently festival programmers, sellers and buyers have found a new faith in clever genre films,” Lovadina adds, mentioning other key titles in the last years –Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’ “Goodnight Mommy,” Emiliano Rocha Minter’s “We are the Flesh.”

Ángel Sala, director of October’s Sitges Intl. Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, Europe’s biggest genre movie meet, said: “Smart genre is a trend which is strongly consolidating. Directors tend to be young, and use genre motives in different ways.” Doing so, they have won selection at non-specialized festivals like Sundance or Cannes. Sala believes some productions to be excessively minimalist and pretentious and others brilliant such as Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook,” “It Follows” or Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” –the re-visitation of Dario Argento’s 1977 iconic movie, which opens Sitges Oct. 4.

The festival director also points out that established auteurs, such as Lars Von Trier, have occasionally used genre elements in order to develop a personal cinema.

Mike Hostench, Sitges deputy director and a jury member for upcoming Sitges Pitchbox, doesn’t much like the tag “smart genre” (“as if Roman Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ wasn’t ‘smart’,” he says). But “there’s really an increasing trend of auteur terror, or so-called smart genre,” he says. “It’s a phenomenon that is very much rooted in the U.S., although there’ are some examples in Austria or Germany. Directors love genre cinema, but they look for some twists in order to intellectually defy audiences,” he adds.

Many smart genre titles come from Latin America. Examples at Sitges Pichbox: ”The Monster Within,” Rodrigo Susarte’s awaited feature debut, produced by Chile’s Forastero. “They Vanished,”—featuring this year— a fantasy thriller directed by Inti Carrizo-Ortiz and also produced out of Chile, this time by Estudio 19 Producciones.

A second trend: Zombies. Jongsuk Thomas Nam, managing director at the Bucheon Int’l Fantastic Film Festival and jury member at Sitges Pitchbox, mentions everything from throwback living dead features, musicals – John McPhail’s “Anna and The Apocalypse,” youthful longing – Justin P. Lange and Klemens Hufnagl’s “The Dark,” love stories – Mathieu Turi’s “Hostile” and Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke’s “Cargo,” and the Apocalypse – Trey Edward Shults’ “It Comes at Night.”

“Globally, stories about zombies are all over the map these days.” Jongsuk says. “The common thread with these titles seems to be less emphasis on ‘shock value’ and more on strong storyline presence.”

Sala points out that this trend has arisen since 9-11. “It’s the ‘angst,’ the anguish hooked into the population since then, afraid of an invisible enemy. This not only encompasses zombies, but also sci-fi movies and other sub-genres. Think titles like Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead,” Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later,” the “Resident Evil” franchise or Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds.” All of them are from after 2001,” Sala notes, adding that many terror movies keep finding inspiration in this societal fear. He mentions another recent sample— Crazy Pictures’ “The Unthinkable.”

A third trend: Throwbacks to the ‘70s and ‘80s. Series like “Stranger Things” and features like François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell’s “Summer of ’84” or Panos Cosmatos’ “Mandy” pay large tribute to that period not just through visuals, but musical aspects as well.

”With filmmakers having watched the classic horror movies while growing up, these new auteurs are creating original stories with influences from their early viewing experiences.”

But trends in genre are quickly changing, Sala says: “Some time ago, tendencies were changing every five years; now, every two years.”

Some new ones may surface at the Sitges Festival, running Oct. 4-14 and at Sitges Pitchbox, which takes place on Oct. 5.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WEA05.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2018-10-27 10:58:212019-12-13 05:23:44Breaking News : VARIETY // Smart Genre, Zombies and Throwbacks: Trends In Genre Cinema

Breaking News : SCREEN // Polish historical drama ‘The Mute’ gets sales deal (exclusive)

October 27, 2018/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Polish historical drama ‘The Mute’ gets sales deal (exclusive)

BY TOM GRATER23 AUGUST 2018

The Mute, the Polish historical drama from Bartosz Konopka, has been boarded for world sales by Paris-based Reel Suspects.

SOURCE: REEL SUSPECTS

‘THE MUTE’

Writer-director Konopka’s previous credits include Fear Of Falling, he was also Oscar-nominated in 2010 for his documentary short Rabbit à la Berlin.

His latest feature follows two knights, the experienced Willibrord and the young, mysterious Unnamed, who set off to christen a small pagan village hidden deep in the mountains. Despite the differences in their views and perspectives on religion, the two men become travel companions and create a father-son relationship. When they reach the village, the pagans put the newcomers’ beliefs to a test.

The screenplay was written by Konopka with Przemysław Nowakowski and Anna Wydra, who is also producing the film through her banner Otter Films. Co-producers on the project are Poland’s Odra Film and Belgium’s Earlybirds Films.

The film was developed through the EAVE workshops and received the Krzysztof Kieślowski Award for the Best Script at the 2012-2013 edition of the ScripTeast workshop. The film received financial support from the Polish Film Institute, Eurimages and Screen Flanders.

Reel Suspects will be in Toronto with titles including Karlovy Vary Competition premiere To The Night, FrightFest premiere Seeds, and Fantasia winner Number 37.

“We have been following Bartosz work since his debut film Fear of Falling. In the vain of Valhalla Risingwith a Game Of Thrones touch, this crossover drama is destined to be a cult,” said Matteo Lovadina from Reel Suspects.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/MUT1.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2018-10-27 10:49:312019-12-13 05:23:52Breaking News : SCREEN // Polish historical drama 'The Mute' gets sales deal (exclusive)

Breaking News : SCREEN // ‘To The Night’ starring Caleb Landry Jones gets sales deal ahead of Karlovy Vary berth

June 1, 2018/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

‘To The Night’ starring Caleb Landry Jones gets sales deal ahead of Karlovy Vary berth (exclusive)

Psychological drama To The Night, starring Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), has been boarded for world sales by Paris-based Reel Suspects.

to the night

SOURCE: REEL SUSPECTS

‘TO THE NIGHT’

The film, which is the English-language debut from Austrian writer-director Peter Brunner, portrays an artist who suffers from PTSD after losing his parents in a tragic fire when he was a child. When his memories of the event are reignited one night, he sets off on a quest to face his past and build the family he never had.

To The Night is set to premiere in the main competition of the upcoming 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 29 – July 7). Director Brunner’s previous feature, Those Who Fall Have Wings, won the special jury prize at Karlovy Vary in 2015.

Co-starring in the film are Eléonore Hendricks (Heaven Knows What) and Abbey Lee (The Neon Demon). It was shot entirely in New York and produced by Austrian outfit FreibeuterFilm in co-production with Ulrich Seidl Film and in collaboration with US company Loveless. The project received financial support from the Austrian Film Institute as well as the ORF Film/Fernseh-Abkommen.

“We are really proud to work on Peter Brunner’s third feature, and extremely happy to present it to the Karlovy Vary audience,” commented Matteo Lovadina, CEO of Reel Suspects.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/TTN_01.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2018-06-01 09:12:442018-06-01 11:59:13Breaking News : SCREEN // 'To The Night' starring Caleb Landry Jones gets sales deal ahead of Karlovy Vary berth

Breaking News : SCREEN // Reel Suspects inks deals on thriller ‘Number 37’ (exclusive)

May 1, 2018/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Reel Suspects inks deals on thriller ‘Number 37’ (exclusive)

number 37 c reel suspects

SOURCE: REEL SUSPECTS

‘NUMBER 37’

Paris-based Reel Suspects has scored deals on its South African crime thriller Number 37 following the film’s market screening in Cannes.

The film, which had its world premiere at SXSW this year, has gone to Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Indeed Films) and China (Time Vision).

US distributor Dark Star Pictures picked up North American rights from XYZ earlier this month. Reel Suspects handles international rights.

The Afrikaans-language film is the directing debut of Nosipho Dumisa and is styled as a homage to Hitchcock’s Rear Window. The story follows a low-level criminal in Cape Town who is cooped up in his apartment after being crippled during an illicit deal-gone-wrong. Heavily indebted to a loan shark, the man must utilise a pair of binoculars to get the cash he needs.

It was produced by Bradley Joshua and Benjamin Overmeyer from Gambit Films. Irshaad Ally stars.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/N37-03.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2018-05-01 09:13:532018-06-01 11:59:07Breaking News : SCREEN // Reel Suspects inks deals on thriller 'Number 37' (exclusive)

Breaking News : SCREEN // ‘Nervous Translation’: Film Review | Filmart 2018

April 10, 2018/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

‘Nervous Translation’: Film Review | Filmart 2018

5:00 PM PDT 3/18/2018 by Clarence Tsui

Courtesy of Hong Kong International Film Festival
‘Nervous Translation’
A delicate sensation.  TWITTER

Shireen Seno’s second feature revisits the tumult of 1980s Philippines through the eyes of an introverted 8-year-old.

Boasting fantastic imagery, arrhythmical cuts, an inventive screenplay and a wonderfully nuanced performance from its child star, Nervous Translation is at once a powerful rite-of-passage drama and an allegory about the uncertainty of life in the Philippines in the late 1980s, when the country emerged from two decades of dictatorship and plunged headlong into capitalism. Tracking a second-grader’s eccentric efforts to perceive the chaotic circumstances whirling around her, Shireen Seno has teased a piece of contemplative cinema out of a restless child’s play.

A well-known experimental visual artist and curator, Seno has worked with auteurs Lav Diaz and John Torres; Torres served as producer and editor on Seno’s 2012 debut, Big Boy, as well as on Nervous. Seno is certainly a kindred spirit of both filmmakers. She shares Diaz’s fascination with mining the Philippines’ past for clues to the present, and Torres’ penchant for creating fantastical stories from outdated technology (Big Boy is shot completely on Super 8) and found objects (Nervous likes to re-create reality with miniatures.)

Nervous won the NETPAC award for best Asian film at Rotterdam and its Hong Kong screening should be the first of many stops to come. Its core content — a lonely child’s attempt to connect with her aloof mother, absent father and a disorderly society — are universal enough to overcome any potential loss in translation.

Jana Agoncillo, the small protagonist, is best known among Filipino audiences for her turn as a sweet, bubbly toddler in the unremittingly life-affirming 2015 TV series Ningning. Here, in what amounts to an against-type performance, the 8-year-old actor plays Yael, a girl who spends most of her time fending for herself and entertaining her own thoughts.

Her mother, Val (Angge Santos), slaves for long hours in a factory, and is usually too tired to communicate when she’s at home. They have a strict rule stipulating silence for the first half-hour after she comes home, and their most intimate routine seems to be when Val pays Yael to pluck her white hairs. Theirs is a cold, pragmatic relationship. Yael keeps a log of hairs plucked and her earnings, while Val treats everything as an academic subject: Time is a math question and “gallivanting” is best experienced as a correctly spelled word.

Yael’s father exists merely as a spectral voice on tapes he sends from Saudi Arabia, where he earns a living. It’s obvious the mother and daughter yearn for his presence as they make do with the frequent visits of his twin brother, Tino (Sid Lucero), a musician turned businessman whose feelings for them seem much more complex than that of a brother-in-law/uncle.

Adult viewers will easily detect Tino’s affection for Val. But Yael doesn’t — and her different perceptions are exactly what Seno is trying to illustrate. As a reaction against the frosty emotions around her, the girl finds her own way to tease some order and sense out of her surroundings. Her routine includes playing a math quiz with a classmate over the phone, making a miniature dinner with her toy cooking set and listening to her father’s taped love letters for her mother.

Defying common perceptions of children in films, Yael is neither a daydreamer nor a victim. She is discerning enough to absorb everything she sees into her vocabulary, but also canny enough to treat everything with some irony. Seno’s screenplay is spot on in navigating the complexity of a modern child’s worldview, and Agoncillo steers clear of simply making her character a bitter, unsympathetic brat.

But Nervous is about much more than Yael’s growing pains: It’s also about the Philippines emerging from 20 years of Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship in a collective daze, with people struggling to make sense of the opportunities and risks posed by the so-called freedoms of a neoliberal state. The adults seem more at sea than Yael, as Val struggles to contend with her husband’s overseas work and Tino silently bristles about having had to trade in his rebellious past (his band, as it happens, was called The Futures) for a comfortable life.

Seno has successfully translated all these motions and emotions into a work of structured chaos, with the viewer feeling the characters’ lethargy and disorientation through a mix of magical-realist imagery (lo-fi robots, flooded apartments and bizarre TV ads), Itos Ledesma’s blippy electronic soundtrack, and Seno and Torres’ wonderfully offbeat editing. Anxiety oozes out of nearly every frame in Nervous Translation, and for once it’s a very good thing.

Production companies: Los Otros Films, Creative Programs
Cast: Jana Agoncillo, Angge Santos, Sid Lucero
Director-screenwriter: Shireen Seno
Producers: John Torres, Ronald Arguelles
Director of photography: Albert Banzon, Jippy Pascua, Dennese Victoria
Production designer: Leeroy New
Music: Itos Ledesma
Editing: John Torres, Shireen Seno
Sales: Reel Suspects
In Filipino
90 minutes

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/03.-Nervous-Translation.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2018-04-10 16:17:572018-06-01 11:59:01Breaking News : SCREEN // 'Nervous Translation': Film Review | Filmart 2018

Breaking News : SCREEN // Rotterdam competition title ‘Nervous Translation’ taken by Reel Suspects (exclusive)

February 9, 2018/0 Comments/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2018 competition title Nervous Translation has been picked up by Matteo Lovadina’s Paris-based sales agents Reel Suspects.

Nervous translation

SOURCE: REEL SUSPECTS

NERVOUS TRANSLATION

Directed by Shireen Seno, who previously helmed Big Boy which played at Rotterdam in 2011, the drama is a coming-of-age tale set in the Philippines in the 1980s. It follows an eight-year-old girl who lives with her mother in the family house, where the absence of their exiled father sinks them into an oppressive atmosphere.

John Torres produced, Ronald Arguelles was executive producer.

Reel Suspects will be hoping it can complete a hat-trick of Rotterdam Tiger competition wins – the company has had rights to the winners from the last two years, Sexy Durga and Radio Dreams.

Lovadina commented on Nervous Translation: “The remarkable talent of director Shireen Seno catches this narrow and magical universe, threatened by incomprehensible adults. Perceiving this world through the eyes and ears of this shy little girl becomes an exceptional and pleasant experience for the audience.

“In very rare occasions, we’ve seen this pure innocence and candidness of childhood so well portrayed on screen. The audience in Rotterdam will be surely charmed. We hope that festival directors and buyers will have the time to sit down, and breathe, to enjoy the lightness of this masterpiece.”

Also on Reel Suspects’ slate is Lucio A Rojas’ violent horror Trauma from Chile, Reiner Kiil’s second feature Christmas Blood, SXSW jury prize winner The Strange Ones, and Toronto premiere Five Fingers For Marseilles.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/01.-Nervous-Translation.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2018-02-09 08:06:512018-06-01 11:58:56Breaking News : SCREEN // Rotterdam competition title 'Nervous Translation' taken by Reel Suspects (exclusive)
Page 2 of 6‹1234›»

Pages

  • Company Logo
  • Company Profile
  • Contacts
  • Distribution
  • Downloads
  • Home
  • Newsletter
  • Privacy Policy
  • Projects

Categories

  • NEWS

Archive

  • October 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • October 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • March 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
PreviousNext
12

WE MEET ONLINE

© Copyright 2014-2021. Reel Suspects
  • Home
  • Distribution
  • Company Profile
  • Contacts
Scroll to top
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

SAVE & ACCEPT