Bleecker Street has acquired North American rights from HanWay Films to historical epic The Return, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey which reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche 25 years after The English Patient.
HanWay continues international sales at the EFM and has licensed Benelux (The Searchers), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo), Turkey (Mars), Poland (Monolith), former Yugoslavia (Cinemania), Baltics (GPI), the Middle East (Front Row), South Africa (Filmfinity), and Singapore (Shaw). Cinesky has exclusive airline rights.
Uberto Pasolini (Nowhere Special) will direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Edward Bond (Blow-Up, Walkabout) and John Collee (Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World.)
The Return will also star Charlie Plummer and is scheduled to begin production in Greece this spring in Corfu and the Peloponnese, before moving to Italy.
Bleecker Street plans a 2024 theatrical release. Fiennes will play Odysseus who returns home weary and haggard after fighting in the Trojan War and must summon his strength to save his family after his wife Penelope (Binoche) is beset by ambitious suitors who want his son Telemachus (Plummer) dead.
The Italy-Greece-UK-France co-production is produced by Pasolini and James Clayton for Red Wave Films, Roberto Sessa for Picomedia (Asacha Media Group) with Rai Cinema, Giorgos Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovravkis for Heretic and Stephane Moatti, Romain Le Grand, Vivien Aslanian and Marco Pacchioni for Kabo Films (Asacha Media Group) and Marvelous Production.
Andrew Karpen and Kent Sanderson will serve as executive producers for Bleecker Street. Avy Eschenasy and Sanderson of Bleecker Street brokered this deal with HanWay. HanWay handles ongoing international sales at EFM.
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EFM Director Dennis Ruh discusses changes for this edition.
