Martin Kemp Gary Kemp - P 2013
Getty ImagesLONDON – Financing and distribution group Intandem Films will arrive at this year’s American Film Market with a new chief executive and a handful of fresh sales titles to introduce to buyers.
The company, under the watchful eye of former Walt Disney U.K. chief Robert Mitchell, will touch down at November’s AFM with $10-million biopic Gagarin First In Space, the story of the Russian cosmonaut who became the first human in space.
The film tells the tale of the man selected from more than 3,000 fighter pilots across the USSR to take part in his country’s space program before blasting off in a Vostok rocket on April 12, 1961.
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The film is produced by Oleg Kapanets and Igor Tolstunov and directed by Pavel Parkhomenko and stars Yaroslav Zhalnin, Mikhail Pilippov and Viktor Proskurin.
The movie, timed to coincide with Gagarin’s 80th anniversary in 2014, runs at 108 minutes, which is the exact amount of time the cosmonaut spent in space orbiting the earth.
Kapanets described Gagarin as one of the “world’s truly global icons.”
Intandem Films has also inked a deal to be the exclusive sales agent on three fully financed movies produced by Jonathan Sothcott (The Fall of The Essex Boys) of Richwater Films.
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Each of the films will be represented by Intandem at this year’s AFM, which runs from Nov. 6 to Nov. 13.
The three Sothcott produced films will be Stephen Reynolds‘ Vendetta, an action thriller starring Danny Dyer set for a U.K. theatrical release on Nov. 15 via Anchor Bay; J.K. Amalou‘s Assassin, starring former Spandau Ballet band members Martin and Gary Kemp; and Reign of the General, a true crime epic starring Ricci Harnett as gangland legend Carlton Leach.
Sothcott, Richwater Films’ CEO, said in order to fulfill his intention to establish his label as a “a serious player in the action/crime film marketplace,” he always “relied on finding a major sales agent, which was prepared to go the extra mile to achieve the results the films deserve and help show that U.K. films can work internationally.”
Added Sothcott: “In Intandem, I think we have found that agency, and I am very much looking forward to working with the team on what I hope will be the beginning of a successful long-term relationship.”
Intandem Films executive directors Billy Hurman and Andrew Brown, two of the most familiar faces on the international sales and marketing scene, will be on hand to ink the deals.
Mitchell took the reins at the company in February of this year after chief executive and founder Gary Smith stepped down from the Intandem board, with plans to executive produce movies and pursue new opportunities outside the film industry.
