SAN SEBASTIAN — Rome-based Fandango Sales, the sales arm of Domenico Procacci’s production shingle Fandango, has taken all international rights on Eliane Caffè’s “Hotel Cambridge” which world premiered Sept. 19 at the San Sebastian Festival’s Horizontes Latinos, a Latin America showcase. The first reactions from audiences in the theater were upbeat.
Wanda Films has taken rights for Spain. It will be released in 2017, Wanda topper José María Morales confirmed. “Cambridge” will bow in Brazil in February via distribution house Vitrine.
“Cambridge” is produced by São Paulo’s Aurora Filmes in co-production with Paris’ Tu Vas Voir, Madrid’s Nephilim Producciones and I Apoio.
A vivid portrait of homeless in São Paulo, “Cambridge” took the Industry Award at San Sebastian’s 2015 pix-in-post showcase Films in Progress, one of festival’s main industry events.
“Hotel Cambridge” is the fourth feature of São Paulo-born Caffè who after her debut “Kenoma,” which won a Golden Sun at the Biarritz International Festival of Latin American Cinema, has gained an international reputation especially from her second outing, “The Storytellers,” winner of a Fipresci award at the Fribourg Festival and an Audience Award at the Rio de Janeiro Fest).
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Fandango’s lineup largely offers Italian and other-European filmmaker, but it now showing an increasing interest in Latin American cinema. The company is handling sales on Sergio Mazza’s “El Guri” and Victor Gaviria’s “The Animal’s Wife.”
“’Cambridge’ is a very powerful film not only because of the subject, which is contemporary, crucial and international, but also for the strength of the direction and the personal style,” Raffaella Di Giulio, Fandango head of international sales, told Variety.
“The industry readily recognised these qualities last year in San Sebastian. It was the first time I saw the film and the impression was truly strong,” she added.
