Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Mathieu Amalric’s “Hold Me Tight,” an engrossing family drama starring “Phantom Thread” actor Vicky Krieps. Co-produced and sold by Gaumont, the movie world premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Adapted from Claudine Galea’s stage play, “Hold Me Tight” follows Clarisse (Krieps), a mother who has abandoned her family for mysterious reasons and is coping with great emotional upheaval. The movie alternates between Clarisse’s adventures on the road and scenes of her husband Marc (Arieh Worthalter) struggling to care for their children at home.
Laetitia Gonzalez and Yaël Fogiel at Les Films du Poisson produced the movie with Gaumont, Arte France Cinéma and Lupa Film serving as co-producers.
Following Cannes, the movie went on to play at Rotterdam and Busan, as well as earned a pair of Cesar nominations for Krieps and best adapted screenplay for Amalric. Krieps was also at last year’s Cannes with Mia Hansen-Love’s “Bergman Island,” which played in competition.
“Hold Me Tight” marks Amalric’s sixth directorial outing. His filmmaking credits include “Barbara,” which won a prize at Un Certain Regard in 2017, and “Tournée,” which earned him a best director prize in competition.
“Mathieu Amalric’s skills as a filmmaker and storyteller are on full display in this deeply emotional yet enigmatic story of love, memory and loss,” said Kino Lorber senior vice president Wendy Lidell, who negotiated the deal with Alexis Cassanet of Gaumont at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema market in New York, which was co-hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and Unifrance.
“Human hearts and minds often work in strange ways, and here Mathieu and Krieps succeed in bringing nearly unfathomable feelings to the surface,” added Lidell.
Amalric said that “in these difficult times, it is an immense honor that people like Wendy Lidell and Richard Lorber, who see so many films from around the world, have welcomed ‘Hold Me Tight’ with open arms.”
Cassanet said Kino Lorber has “a long history of distributing the best of French cinema in the U.S. and Canada.”
“We know Richard and Wendy will embrace Mathieu’s vision and deploy a tailor-made strategy to best reach the North American audience,” Cassanet added.
Kino Lorber also picked up “On the Edge,” a French-language crime thriller by Giordano Gederlini (“Les Miserables”), at the New York Rendez-Vous with French Cinema market.
