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- Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
- The Orphanage
- Silk
- Rocket Science
- The King of Kong:
A Fistful of Quarters - La Vie En Rose
- El Cantante
- Gracie
- Starter for 10
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Who the #$&% is
Jackson Pollock? - Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
- A Prairie Home Companion
- The Notorious
Bettie Page - Tristram Shandy:
A Cock & Bull Story - Ushpizin
- The Thing About
My Folks - The Chumscrubber
- Gus Van Sant’s
Last Days - Rock School
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Latest News
Picturehouse Acquires The Orphanage at Berlin Film Festival
Atmospheric Thriller Presented by Oscar-Nominee Guillermo del Toro
BERLIN, February 12, 2007 — Picturehouse has acquired all U.S. rights to The Orphanage, an atmospheric thriller produced by Guillermo del Toro among others and directed by J.A. Bayona, while at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, it was announced today by Bob Berney, President of Picturehouse.
The Orphanage, presented by Oscar-Nominee Guillermo del Toro, centers on a Laura (Belén Rueda from The Sea Inside) who purchases her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled children. Once there, Laura discovers that the new environment awakens her son’s imagination, but the ongoing fantasy games he plays with an invisible friend quickly turn into something more disturbing. Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place.
Directed by J.A. Bayona, The Orphanage is written by Sergio G. Sánchez and produced by del Toro, Mar Targarona, Álvaro Augustín and Joaquín Padró.
“The Orphanage is a remarkable discovery and the debut of a truly exciting new director, Bayona,” said Berney. “The film is emotional and terrifying at the same time; a really powerful showcase of yet another burgeoning Spanish director.”
“Bayona has captured some very moody and terrifying footage that just blew me away,” added del Toro. “After my great experience with Bob and his team on Pan’s Labyrinth, I knew that The Orphanage was a perfect film for them to release. I know they will give our film the attention and care it needs to break out.”
The deal was brokered on behalf of Picturehouse by Berney, VP of European and Latin American Acquisitions/Production New Line Cinema Alexandra Rossi at Berlin and Carolyn Blackwood, Executive Vice President of Business Affairs and Co-Productions at New Line and by Carole Baraton at Wild Bunch (TBC).
Launched in April 2005, Picturehouse is the joint venture of two leaders of the entertainment community - HBO and New Line Cinema. Currently in release is Guillermo del Toro’s gothic fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth, which has been included on more than 130 critics top ten lists, nominated for 6 Academy Awards and has currently grossed more than $27 million in North America. Up next is Starter for 10 from Tom Hanks’ Playtone Productions; El Cantante, a music-infused biography of Puerto Rican, salsa pioneer Hector Lavoe, starring Jennifer Lopez and her husband, Marc Anthony; Oliver Dahan’s Edith Piaf biopic, La Vie En Rose; Gracie, directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) and starring Oscar Nominee-Elisabeth Shue, Andrew Shue and Carly Schroeder (Firewall, Mean Creek); and Francois Girard’s Silk, starring Michael Pitt, Keira Knightley, Koji Yakusho, and Alfred Molina.