Netflix Nabs Rights To Indie Feature 'Summit Of The Gods'
The international film festival circuit traditionally generates a bidding war between distributors as they compete to snag the rights to the films generating the most buzz. In recent times, the competition has got even fiercer as streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV Plus have joined the fray. This year, Netflix has snapped up the rights to the French/Luxemburgish animated feature Summit Of The Gods.
The film played Cannes this year in competition and is set to be one of this year's most talked-about independent animated features. Netflix have picked up worldwide rights for the film excluding France, Benelux, Japan, China and Korea and will release the film on November 30. They have also confirmed that the film will also get a limited theatrical release in both the United States (November 24) and the United Kingdom (November 26).
Synopsis
Were George Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine the first men to scale Everest on June 8th, 1924? Only the little Kodak camera they took with them might reveal the truth. In Kathmandu, 70 years later, a young Japanese reporter named Fukamachi recognizes the camera in the hands of the mysterious Habu Jôji, an outcast climber believed missing for years. Fukamachi enters a world of obsessive mountaineers hungry for impossible conquests on a journey that leads him, step by step, towards the summit of the gods.
The Summit of the Gods (Le Sommet des Dieux), is adapted from a bestselling manga from Jiro Taniguchi and Baku Yumemakura. The film is directed by Annie Award-nominated Patrick Imbert (director of The Big Bad Fox And Other Tales, animation director on Ernest and Celestine) and written by Impert with Jean-Charles Ostorero and Magali Pouzol. Didier Brunner, veteran producer of animated features including Wolfwalkers, Belleville Rendez-Vous and The Secret Of Kells and founder of studio Folivari is among the producers.
Netflix will be hoping to repeat the success of their last big French indie animation pick-up I Lost My Body which was nominated for more than 50 awards including the Oscars and Annies.
Summit Of The Gods is due to hit French cinemas on
September 22.
