MUMBAI: After the fallout with UTV, Palador has scored an ace at the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival by acquiring the special “60th anniversary prize” winner film Paranoid Park.
Last week, UTV announced that it had severed ties with Palador, a company aimed at promoting world cinema. UTV Palador saw a brief run of around two months before the venture shut shop and both companies parted ways. Both UTV and Palador were present at the 60th Cannes Film Festival. While UTV was busy promoting its ventures, Goal and Jodhaa Akbar; Palador was fishing out content for its label.
The movie by Oscar nominated director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting), had a special screening at the festival this year. Paranoid Park will be released worldwide in September. Palador has also lined up plans to release the film simultaneously in India. This will be a first, as no Cannes winner has ever seen a simultaneous release in India.
Paranoid Park, based on a novel of the same name by author Blake Nelson, follows Alex, a 16-year-old skateboarder, who accidentally kills a security guard outside Paranoid Park, Portland’s most infamous skateboarding locale. When he decides not to tell anyone, he takes on a crushing burden of guilt that envelopes his life.
Palador managing director Gautam Shiknis says, “This is the best to come out for India from Cannes this year, where India received special significance, being the 60th year of Cannes, as well as the 60th year of Indian independence. It has always been Palador’s aim to bring the best films from the world to the country before it becomes yesterday’s news in developed countries. What better way to assert this, than by bringing in the best film of the festival.”
The company has already acquired the next Lars Von Tier film, The Antichrist based on the script. The film has not yet begun production. The other movie in its kitty is David Lynch’s Inland Empire.
It is understood that Palador has acquired the rights to 300 new films, taking its total catalogue of the best and most awarded films in the world to 750. Among the many films the company has acquired is the complete catalogue of Werner Herzog.
