22-04-2009

Shoreline picks up I Was Here

By Martin Aadamsoo

    I Was Here by Rene Vilbre has been picked up by leading independent US sales agent Shoreline Entertainment for sales to all territories beyond Estonia.

    The film, which premiered in Karlovy Vary's 2008 East of the West section, is the first Estonian addition to the company's sale slate and comes as part of Shoreline Entertainment's (www.shorelineentertainment.com) reported development of a new European strategy. According to Riina Sildos, the producer, Shoreline Entertainment contacted her production company Amrion (www.amrion.ee) on the heels of reviews published in international trade papers. According to Sildos, the film is slotted to make make its market appearance in Cannes this year.

    The story of an elite school boy turned pusher, I Was Here was released in Estonia in 2008 and collected 46,000 admissions, catapulting it to the eighth position in the annual box office rankings. The film had a budget of 600,000 EUR and is a co-production between Amrion, Estonian state sources, and Helsinki Filmi OY (www.helsinkifilmi.fi), Finland.