LevelK ceo Tine Klint was happy to leave the American launch in the hands of the Chicago-based company specialising in foreign-language art house films and US indies and classics, seeking out "ageless stories that have been artfully conveyed."
"Masterfully shot and edited, Õunpuu's film is a marvelous cinematic expression of the Kafkaesque story of good and evil, without the temptation to rigidly define ‘good' and ‘evil'," said Olive Films chief Farhad Arshad, who negotiated the deal with Klint.
Described as a "parable on the new, wolf like capitalism in Eastern Europe with its compassionless capitalist rules and rulers," Õunpuu's second feature follows a middle-aged, mid-level manager (Taavi Eelmaa) trying to tackle a heap of emotional problems.
The Temptation of St Tony was selected for this year's VRPO Tiger Awards at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. It was the first Estonian feature ever to screen in Sundance, and the first non-Swedish film to close Sweden's Göteborg International Film Festival.
"Veiko Õunpuu's bold, contemporary update of the stations-of-the-cross genre more than lives up to the promise of his 2007 debut, Autumn Ball. His imprimatur is on every frame of this delicious black-and-white prestige product," wrote Howard Feinstein in Screen International.
Also represented by Klint, Autumn Ball (Sügisball) won the Horizons Award in Venice, adding more than 20 festival prizes at Tallinn's Black Nights, Thessaloniki, Marrakech, Valencia, Brussels and Bratislava. It was acquired for the US by Strand Releasing.
LevelK's line-up for the company's first European Film Market includes Norwegian director Gunnar Vikene's award-winning Vegas, with Norwegian Shooting Star Anders Baasmo Christiansen, and Danish director Giacomo Campeotto's kidpic, Storm.
Contact in Berlin: Managing director Tine Klint. Mobil tel +45.20.10.85.80. www.levelk.dk, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
