Cannes’ Critics Week Winner ‘Diamantino’ Nabbed for U.S. by Kino Lorber (EXCLUSIVE)

By Elsa Keslassy

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Kino Lorber has acquired U.S. rights to Cannes Critics’ Week winner “Diamantino,” Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s comic fantasy film.

The Portuguese-American duo’s feature debut will have its North American premiere at Toronto, where it has been selected to close the Midnight Madness genre section. “” will go on to have its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, where it will kick off the Projections section.

Sold by French sales company Charades, the Franco-Brazilian-Portuguese comedy drama follows a disgraced soccer star aspiring to give his life a new purpose, who becomes exploited by many people, including a nationalistic party eager to use him as its mascot. Through his frenzied journey, the reconverted soccer star is confronted with neo-fascism, the refugee crisis, genetic modification, abuse from his evil twin sisters, and a deranged hunt for the source of genius.

Variety‘s Guy Lodge described the movie as “one of the year’s most singular debuts with this winningly bizarre, genre-melding political satire.”

“We were ecstatic in Cannes with this un-synopsizable theme-park ride of a film whose ideas, vision and narrative arc do loop-de-loops at a breathless pace,” said CEO Richard Lorber who negotiated the deal with co-founder Carole Baraton.

“We can’t wait to bring such an amazing, brainy cinematic marvel to American audiences who have come to expect no less from Kino Lorber. They’ll get even more than they bargained for this time,” added Lorber.

Abrantes and Schmidt praised Kino Lorber, which they said has “released some of [their] favorite recent films, including ‘Dogtooth’ and ‘Arabian Nights’” in the U.S.

Kino Lorber will release “Diamantino” theatrically beginning in May 2019, followed by VOD and home video rollout.

Kino Lorber’s recent acquisitions include Jafar Panahi’s “3 Faces” and Bi Gan’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”