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Kingdom secures international sales

Animal Kingdom has found distributors for the UK, France, Italy and Russia, and a deal for the United States is currently being negotiated.

The successful first screening of David Michôd’s debut feature at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22 generated a number of offers from international territories, a stark contrast to the results obtained by other Australian films at last year’s event.

“I had been warned about last year’s situation at Sundance, when everything shut down in terms of market interest and actual dollars. But this year I felt pretty optimistic, to be honest,” said producer Liz Watts (Porchlight Films).

The producer told Encore that although the scene has changed with the disappearance of ‘mini-majors’ such as Miramax, new distributors are providing international independent films with other opportunities.

“There’s a number of new options, smaller than the ‘mini-majors’, and these distribution outfits are really interesting,” she said.

Watts believes Australians audiences like to hear that an Australian film has been well received elsewhere.

“We’ll see what happens. If they’re even a little more aware of the film because of the prize, it might mean that they will actually go and see it,” said Watts.

The producer, who is currently developing  The Hunter with director Daniel Nettheim for a late 2010 Victoria/Tasmania shoot, revealed that Animal Kingdom has already received numerous invitations to festivals, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Watts will work with distributor Madman Entertainment in preparation for the May 6 release of the film.

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