Sony Pictures Classics has made two pickups out of the Toronto International Film Festival, acquiring North American rights to the Robert Duvall-Bill Murray period comedy “Get Low” and the Israeli war pic “Lebanon.”
Aaron Schneider directed “Low,” which stars Duvall as an eccentric in 1940s Tennessee who staged his own fake funeral and the undertaker (Murray) who helped him pull it off. Dean Zanuck and David Gundlach produced and Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell wrote the script. Sissy Spacek also stars.
Samuel Maoz’s “Lebanon” was a hot title at the festival after winning the Golden Lion at Venice and then earning a number of critical raves. The pic, which takes place almost entirely in an Israeli tank during the country’s 1982 war in Lebanon, has drawn comparisons to “The Hurt Locker” and another autobiographical Israeli war pic, “Waltz With Bashir,” the latter of which SPC released to awards acclaim last year.
 |
The acquisitions mark the first two buys from SPC of Toronto films. Still in play out of the fest are the Rodrigo Garcia drama “Mother & Child” and the David Duchovny-toplined marketing satire “The Joneses,” which could see deals in the coming days.
CAA repped the filmmakers in the “Get Low” sale and Celluloid Dreams repped the filmmakers in the “Lebanon” sale.
