This is wonderful news – for the films as well as the company that acquired them!

Call me naive, but I fully expected Moussa Toure's La Pirogue to be quickly picked up for USA distribution after its Cannes Film Festival debut earlier this year, given how well it was received by critiques, and the recent success acclaimed Sub-Saharan African films have enjoyed at that festival, like Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Cannes Grand Jury Prize-winning film, Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man), which was picked up 2 or 3 weeks after the festival closed – while it's certainly not entirely the same film (thematically).

But I'm glad that it'll see some USA distribution; we'll alert you of future screenings as they are announced.

I'd say the same thing for Juan Andres Arango's drama La Playa D.C. (another Cannes selection that left the festival without distribution), the quietly absorbing slice of life in Colombia for young men and women of African descent; another film that's played fairly well on the international film festival circuit, and reviewed mostly enthusiastically, but may have proven to be unappealing to some distributors who may not have known what exactly to do with it, or how and who to market it to. 

The same old dilemna for films about people of African descent.

But both films are in the right hands, as the ArtMattan Productions team – known for their experienced, careful, patient and caring handling of films in their library, squeezing as much life out of each as possible, ensuring that they are seen as widely and often as their resources allow – has acquired all U.S. rights to both films.

To book either of them, interested parties are instructed to contact ArtMattan Films at [email protected] or call (212) 864-1760.

You can read our reactions to both films HERE (for La Pirogue) and HERE (for La Playa D.C.).