Heretic has closed a host of deals on the Sundance Award-winning documentary “And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine” with Picturehouse Entertainment acquiring the UK rights ahead of the film’s European premiere on the Generation 14plus strand at the Berlin Film Festival.
The Athens-based group has also closed deals for Italy (Theodora Film), Benelux (September Film), Poland (Anti-Gravity) and the Czech Republic, where the rights were sold to distributor Arthus Aerofilms and newly launched streaming platform KVIFF.TV, both part of the KVIFF group. , a media conglomerate built around the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. It is the first title to be obtained under the new partnership.
“Fantastic Machine” will also be distributed on HBO and HBO Max channels in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia. The film, which premiered at Sundance in the World Cinema Documentary section, won the festival’s Special Jury Prize for Creative Vision.
The first feature from directors Axel Danielsson and Maximilian van Artrijk, whose 2016 short film Ten Meter Tower was in competition at Sundance and Berlin, “Fantastic Machine” is a thought-provoking examination of humanity’s fascination with itself, and with framing the world through the lens of a camera.
The filmmakers explore how mankind’s obsession with image has grown to change our behaviour, look at the societal consequences of outputting images for the 45 billion cameras on the planet, and ask how humanity went from a backyard photo to a billion-euro content industry in 200 years.
“We are very excited to be working on this movie. It’s an exciting journey, which in addition to being incredibly exciting raises a lot of important questions about where we came from through our consumption of images and where we are now,” said Claire Baines of Picturehouse Entertainment. “We are absolutely excited about the movies. Documentaries at Picturehouse Entertainment, and this fantastic film continues our fantastic work with documentarians with unique insights and great ideas.”
Stefano Vince of Theodora Film added: “A captivating and provocative work on the ambiguity of imagery, with an enormous amount of carefully selected archival footage”. “In an ideal world, it would be shown in all schools. We are so thrilled to be working with the talented filmmakers and the passion and dedication of the Heretic team.”
“Fantastic Machine” was produced by Plattform Produktion (Sweden) and co-produced by SVT (Sweden), Film i Väst and Bullitt Film (Denmark), along with support from Svenska Filminstitutet, Danish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Arte GEIE, Swedish Arts Council, Göteborg Municipality and Transparent Films.
“We’re thrilled that the film resonates in so many different areas,” said Danielson and Van Arterik. We hope her supportive message of “Photo Literacy” will strike a chord with all audiences. We are grateful to Ioanna Stais and the Heritage team for supporting the sales of our films with such dedication.”
EFM’s slate includes Palestinian director Moayad Elyan’s “House in Jerusalem,” which recently had its world premiere at Rotterdam Intl. Film Festival’s “Magnetic Fields” by Yorgos Gosis, which was Greece’s official selection for this year’s International Feature Film Oscar race; Valentina Morel’s debut “I Have Electric Dreams”, which won three prizes in Locarno and first prize of the Horizontes Latinos section in San Sebastian; and Toronto’s Marian Mathias’ “Runner,” which won the San Sebastian Jury Prize.
