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Cannes 2009’s Top 5 Items For Sale: Agora

The big budget assures that the out of competition Agora won’t be bought by an independent but rather, a major studio looking for a strategic tentpole pic sometime after Spain releases the picture in September.

Eric Lavallée

Published on May 6, 2009

Scripted by Alejandro Amenabar and regular co-writing partner Mateo Gil, the historical drama set in early Egypt, concerns a slave Davus (Max Minghella) who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, a female philosophy professor and atheist. Rachel Weisz will play Hypatia, the Alexandrian professor.

What does Amenábar do after the international success of The Others? He makes an small art-house film with subtitles called The Sea Inside and waits more than five year to make what is Spain’s biggest production ever. The big budget assures that the out of competition Agora won’t be bought by an independent but rather, a major studio looking for a strategic tentpole pic sometime after Spain releases the picture in September.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).