Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, announced today the acquisition of North American rights to Pietà, from acclaimed Korean auteur Kim Ki-Duk (Bad Guy, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring, 3-Iron) following its world premiere at the 2012 Venice International Film Festival where it won the ‘Golden Lion’ Award for Best Film.
Selected as South Korea’s official entry into the 2013 Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category, Pietà tells the uncompromising story of a loan shark who is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother. A limited theatrical and multi-platform VOD release for Pietà is planned for 2013 and you can check out a clip from the film using the link below.
Kim Ki-Duk is a multi-award-winning director – the ‘Un Certain Regard’ Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, the ‘Leone D’Argento’ Award for Best Direction at the 2004 Venice Film Festival and the ‘Silver Bear’ Award for Best Direction at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival – whose intense, violent and beautiful imagery has earned praise from both critics and audiences as one of South Korea’s most celebrated and provocative voices. Leslie Felperin for Variety wrote that Pietà’s “gritty, urban setting and thoughtful engagement with themes of revenge, sacrifice and redemption harks back to earlier films that brokered Kim’s reputation as one of Korea’s most innovative and talented helmers.” For Indiewire, Pietà is a “curiously engaging and wickedly twisted tale of crime and punishment on multiple levels…recalls the like-minded outlook of No Country For Old Men.”
“It will be a great opportunity for us to start working with Drafthouse with Kim Ki-duk’s ‘Pietà’. I was most impressed by their in-depth understanding of the film combined with an aggressive distribution strategy based on an equal amount of passion. We hope that U.S. audiences find Pietà as impressive as ‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’,” says Finecut CEO Youngjoo Suh.
“Kim Ki Duk is one of the most daring, provocative and accomplished filmmakers working today, and ‘Pietà’ shows him at the top of his form,” says Drafthouse Films CEO Tim League. “We hope this film brings the first, long-deserved nomination to South Korean, one of the greatest contemporary film cultures in the world.”
Drafthouse COO James Emanuel Shapiro adds, “with one Foreign Language Academy Award nomination for this year’s stunning breakout film ‘Bullhead’, we have high hopes to repeat.”
