TIFF ’12: Cinema Guild tracks down “Leviathan”

September 7, 2012 by Adam Benzine

Leviathan

The Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Leviathan (pictured), the buzz-gathering fishing documentary from Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel.

Leviathan screens next week at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and will have its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, after which it will open theatrically in early 2013. Cinema Guild previously released Castaing-Taylor’s 2009 doc Sweetgrass.

“Leviathan is unlike any film we have ever seen,” said Cinema Guild director of distribution Ryan Krivoshey. “It is a bracing, daring and highly original work that demands to be seen on the big screen. We can’t wait for audiences to experience it.”

According to the film’s billing, the avant-garde doc “captures the collaborative clash of man, nature, and machine. Shot on a dozen cameras – tossed and tethered, passed from fisherman to filmmaker – it is a cosmic portrait of one of mankind’s oldest endeavors.”

The deal marks the first major non-fiction acquisition to come out of this year’s Toronto festival, which TIFF doc programmer Thom Powers has predicted will be a hot one for doc sales.

Check out an extended clip from the film below: