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Amsterdam and Beijing-based film sales company Fortissimo Films has picked up licensing duties to upcoming “Escape From the 21st Century,” a Chinese sci-fi action title.

The story follows three friends who discover they have the power to travel back and forth 20 years with a sneeze. However, the future is not as good as they hoped and need to take on the responsibility of saving the world. The action shuttles between 1999 and 2019 and on Planet K, which is very similar to Earth.

The film is directed by Li Yang (short and co-directed feature “Lee’s Future”) and stars Zhang Ruoyun (“Joy of Life”), Zhong Cuxi (“Youth”) and Song Yang (“Wrath of Silence”).

The picture is produced by Desen International and is headed for a mainland China commercial release on Aug. 3 through Enlight Pictures. Fortissimo is handling rights in the rest of the world ex-mainland China.

Watch the trailer here.

Fortissimo had a busy Cannes,...

Fortissimo Films has secured international rights to upcoming Chinese feature Escape From The 21st Century and will launch sales at Toronto in September.

The Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales company has landed rights to the action sci-fi feature ahead of its local release, which Chinese distributor Enlight Pictures today revealed is set for August 3.

The story follows three friends who discover they have the power to travel back and forth 20 years with a sneeze. However, the future is not as good as they hoped and need to take on the responsibility of saving the world.

Produced by Scity Films, it marks...

Tencent Pictures this week stepped out alongside fellow Tencent subsidiaries New Classics Media and China Literature (aka Yuewen Media) to present for the first time a joint, collaborative film and TV production strategy.

Tencent Pictures and Hong Kong-listed e-book platform China Literature were both established in 2015. Production firm New Classics Media was established in 2007 and was acquired by China Literature in 2018 for $2.25 billion. Up until now, Tencent had a tendency to pit the three against each other as competitors, and left them to undertake similar business endeavors independently without overarching coordination.

But in the wake of China Literature’s serious losses in the first half of the year, the company is shifting gears to think more about how they can work together more collaboratively.

Tencent Group VP and Tencent Pictures CEO Cheng Wu (aka Edward Cheng) took the stage at a press conference Monday in Shanghai to describe the triumvirate as now being a “troika.

The Criterion Channel’s stellar offerings are continuing next month with a selection of new releases, retrospective, series, and more. Leading the pack is, of course, a horror lineup perfectly timed for Halloween, featuring ’70s classics and underseen gems, including Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer (pictured above), Tobe Hopper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, early films by David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, and Brian De Palma, Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess, and more.

Also of note is a New Korean Cinema retrospective, featuring a new introduction by critic Grady Hendrix and a conversation between directors Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook, whose Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host, Mother, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance are part of the lineup, as well as Lee Myung-se’s Nowhere to Hide, and more titles to be announced. Bong’s short Influenza will also arrive, paired with Michael Haneke’s Caché.