Panorama Entertainment today announced the acquisition of Sebastián Borensztein’s Chinese Take-Away (Un cuento chino) from Spanish-based international film sales company Latido Films, for US theatrical distribution in the United States.
The deal was announced via the Industry Office of the 29th annual Miami International Film Festival (MIFF), produced and presented by Miami Dade College (MDC), less than 2 weeks after the US Premiere of the film was presented at the Festival’s Awards Night Gala. A capacity crowd of more than 1,500 at the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center For The Performing Arts displayed a wildly enthusiastic response to the film, which was personally introduced by Borensztein, star Ricardo Darin and the film’s US producer, Benjamin Odell.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better film to wrap up the Festival on our Awards Night and we were honored to have hosted its US Premiere,” said MIFF Executive Director Jaie Laplante. “This touching, hilarious tale is an instant classic, a crowd-pleaser for the ages.”
“This heartwarming tale about language barriers transcends cultural differences and will resonate with all types of audiences,” said President of Panorama Entertainment Stuart Strutin. “We are thrilled to be distributing the film and look forward to working with Latido Films to give the film the release it deserves.”
Chinese Take-Away was the highest grossing local film of Argentina and broke box office records for a Latin American production in many territories including Spain and Brazil. To date it has grossed the equivalent of over USD$9 million at the international box office. It won International Rome Film Festival’s Marc’ Aurelio Jury Award for Best Film and BNL Audience Award for Best Film. It also took won Best Latin American Film at the 2012 Goya Awards.
In the film, Ricardo Darín plays Roberto, a gruff, anti-social loner who lords over his tiny hardware shop in Buenos Aires with a meticulous sense of control and routine. By chance, Roberto encounters a distressed, lost Chinese young man named Jun, a stowaway who has arrived with out-of-date information about a long-lost uncle. Annoyed but extending at least minimal human decency, Roberto tries to help Jun find his missing family. In the process, a story more bizarrely hilarious (and touching) than anything in Roberto’s carefully clipped newspaper articles begins to unfold, and a man’s precious, decades-old misanthropy undergoes a seriously comic siege.
Chinese Take-Away was produced by Pablo Bossi and Juan Pablo Buscarini of Pampa Films (Argentina), Gerardo Herrero and Mariela Besuievsky of Tornasol Films (Spain) and US-based producer Benjamin Odell in coproduction with Aliwood Producciones (Spain).
Panorama’s acquisition of Chinese Take-Away was the third US theatrical deal announced in connection with Miami International Film Festival. Midway through the 29th annual event, Screen Media announced its acquisition of the Rodrigo Santoro- starrer Heleno, from Brazil, and just days after the Festival closed, Outsider Pictures announced its pick-up of Las Acacias, another Argentina/Spain co-production.