Yahoo Finance Breaking Glass Pictures Picks Up Fantasy Double Bill ‘Nocturna’ from Alief (EXCLUSIVE)
Philadelphia-based Breaking Glass Pictures (BGP) has snagged North American rights to fantasy narrative drama “Nocturna: Side A – The Great Old Man’s Night” and its complementary docu-fiction hybrid, “Nocturna: Side B – Where Elephants Go to Die” from U.K. world sales agent Alief.
Breaking Glass plans a fourth quarter 2021 release for the “Nocturna” films.
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As envisioned by Argentine writer-director Gonzalo Calzada, “Nocturna: Side A…” turns on a nearly 100-year-old man who struggles to atone for the transgressions he has committed in his life. In “Nocturna: Side B…,” Calzada explores an experimental version of the same story.
“Director Calzada’s tense and haunting new film masterfully captures our natural fears of growing old and the hope for redemption from past misdeeds before it’s too late,” said Scott Motisko, Breaking Glass VP of Acquisitions, Businesses Development & Sales. “Pepe Soriano is exceptional as Ulysses, bringing a delicate balance of fragility and sorrow to the Great Old Man on his final night,” he asserted.
Deal was brokered by Breaking Glass Pictures CEO Rich Wolff and Motisko with Alief’s Brett Walker and Miguel Govea who snared the global sales and remake rights to the films last November, prior to their presentation at the Ventana Sur market.
Side A of “Nocturna” garnered the best actor and best actress awards at Brazil’s Fantaspoa 2021 and screened in the midnight section of the 24th Shanghai Film Festival. It is also in competition for Best Ibero-American feature at the upcoming 20th Macabro Film Festival in Mexico in August. “Nocturna” Side B will world premiere at the Macabro fest as part of a special double bill screening with Side A.
“‘Nocturna’ A and B were selected because of the subtle way that Calzada (who increasingly shows greater strength in handling the camera and on stage), tells the nightmare of a man at the end of his life: the fears of old age, illness and loneliness are omnipresent; Sadness turning into horror and vice versa,” said Macabro fest director Edna Campos who noted: “The performance of Soriano is masterful and traps us from the beginning on his journey, which we cannot leave at any time.”
“Nocturna B is undoubtedly a love letter to cinema, to its formats and to the transformation it has undergone in its history,” she added.
Over 90 years of age, Soriano is also a theater actor and playwright, and a multi-award-winning industry veteran best known for his pivotal role as Franco’s double in 1988 comedy “Wait for Me in Heaven,” 2002 adventure comedy “El Ultimo Tren” and New York-set drama “A Traves de Tus Ojos.”
A French genre film star from the ‘70s and ‘80s, Marilu Marini plays opposite Soriano as she continues a career-reviving work pace that includes 2017’s “Los Que Aman Odian,” Argentina’s 2020 Oscar submission “The Sleepwalkers” and Netflix French series “Vampires.”
Alief’s auteur-driven slate includes Ibermedia-backed Venezuelan-Italian coming-of-age romance “Opposite Direction,” Eurimages- funded Lithuanian-Latvian-Estonian rock fantasy “Songs for a Fox,” and Erase Una Vez Films’ Catalan-Spanish dramedy “The Pop Song,” presented by CAT Films.
The “Nocturna” films are produced by Argentine genre mavens Coruya Cine (“Russian Lady,” “Searching for the Black Rainbow”) and Calzada’s regular producer La Puerta Cinematografica (“Luciferina,” “Resurreccion”).
The Argentine pick-up adds to the growing slate of Latin American films in BGP’s catalog, which includes Chilean drama “The Strong Ones,” Cuban horror pic “Is That You?” and gay-trans drama “Marilyn,” the feature debut of Argentina’s Martin Rodríguez Redondo.
In May, BGP and Brazil’s O2 Play, the distribution arm of O2 Filmes, co-owned by Oscar-nominated director Fernando Meirelles (“City of God,” “The Constant Gardener,” “The Two Popes”) inked a two-way distribution partnership.
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