Sep 14, 2018

Sony Pictures Classics acquires Reuben Brandt, Collector

The intriguing Hungarian action-crime thriller Ruben Brandt, Collector is headed to U.S. theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. The company has acquired all rights in North America and Latin America.

Sony plans to release the film theatrically in 2019, with an end of year qualifying run.

The 2d animated noir tale is unlike any other recent animated feature:

The film marks the feature animation debut of Milorad Krstic, 66. He's no stranger to animation: his short My Baby Left Me won both the Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival and best first film at Annecy, and his cd-rom Das Anatomische Theater (co-created with his wife Radmila Roczkov), with two hours of interactive animation, received the Annecy-MIFA award for best interactive project in 1999.

Ruben Brandt, Collector, budgeted around USD$4.25 million, was financed by the Hungarian National Film Fund and the Hungarian Film Incentive. The deal was negotiated between Sony Pictures Classics and HNFF World Sales.

Read our interview with writer-director Milorad Krstic, published last month when the film world premiered at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland.

A pick-up from Sony Pictures Classics is a strong indication that the film is worthwhile. The last animated film they released was Michaël Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2017. Other animated films they have distributed in the U.S. have all been of superb quality, including The Triplets of Belleville, Paprika, Persepolis, and Waltz with Bashir.