MK2 Films and Protagonist Pictures have teamed up to handle worldwide sales on “Cold War,” the new film from Academy Award-winning writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski, which has begun production in Poland. The film will be introduced to buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin, and is due for completion in 2018.
Pawlikowski’s most recent film, “Ida,” won the Oscar and BAFTA for best foreign-language film as well as three European Film Awards, including European film, director and screenplay. His other key credits include “My Summer of Love” and “Last Resort.”
“Cold War” is “a passionate love story between two people of different backgrounds and temperaments, who are fatally mismatched….Set against the background of the Cold War in the 1950s in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, the film depicts an impossible love story in impossible times,” according to a statement.
The film is a Polish/French/UK co-production, and is written by Pawlikowski in both Polish and French. The director’s longtime partners Tanya Seghatchian (“My Summer of Love”) of Apocalypso Pictures and Ewa Puszczyńska (“Ida”) from Piotr Dzięciol’s Opus Film, in Poland, are producing, along with France’s MK Productions.
The film is being financed by the Polish Film Institute, MK Productions, Opus Film, CNC – Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, Arte France Cinéma, Film4, the BFI with National Lottery funding, and Protagonist Pictures. U.K. rights are with Curzon Artifical Eye.
“Cold War” stars Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig, alongside Agata Kulesza from “Ida.”
“We are so excited to be working in tandem with our friends at MK2, a company we have long admired, and there is no better kickoff than this extraordinary new project from Pawel Pawlikowski,” said Protagonist CEO Mike Goodridge. “We believe that Pawel is one of contemporary cinema’s great visionaries and we couldn’t be more proud to be involved in ‘Cold War.'”
“’Cold War’ is one of the most exciting projects that we’ve had the opportunity to work on in recent years, and this experience is further enhanced by our partnership with Protagonist, which has such a strong and bold lineup and with whom we share a vision of the film business,” added MK2 CEO Nathanael Karmitz.
