NeoClassics Films has acquired the rights to a political thriller that if marketed right, could be the profitable title that this indie company is been waiting for. A Telluride and TIFF selection, L’Affaire Farewell has a gripping narrative that’ll remind viewers that thriller elements don’t need to be exaggerated into a Bourne domain – it’s a thinking person’s post-cold war storyline with an intriguing, not so splashy perf from filmmaker, sometimes actor Emir Kusturica. Helmed by Christian Carion who works once again with Guillaume Canet (Joyeux Noel), Alexandra Maria Lara, Willem Dafoe and Diane Kruger who has a stopwatch presence in the film – literally less than two minutes. A May release is planned, and hopefully this will do the kind of box office that another Cantet film did for Music Box Films.
Based on real events, Moscow, 1981… A KGB colonel, disgusted with what Soviet policy has become, decides to break with the system. With the help of a French engineer he will play a part in one of the key events in world history, the collapse of the Soviet bloc. In his own way, Farewell managed to change the world, by avoiding traditional espionage methods too well known to the KGB and by not asking for any financial compensation whatsoever – much too capitalist for his taste. He simply followed his desting, so that a new world might dawn on his fellow Russians, but especially for his son.
