Dozens of films are screening daily at the Toronto International Film Festival, but the fest is also a business hub. Just as many deals are being made behind the scenes, and these are just a few that are on our radar: wildlife doc “The Elephant Queen,” rowing doc “Maiden,” and sci-fi “Aniara” have secured distribution.
Deadline reports that Apple acquired rights to Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble’s “The Elephant Queen,” a portrait of Athena, a matriarch elephant struggling to care for herself and her family in the midst of a drought. The directors lived with Athena and her herd for years.
“I have always been fascinated by elephants,” Stone told us. “They have the same emotions as us. If you are around them for long enough you get to thinking that you understand their thoughts, but then they do things that can utterly surprise you.” She explained, “Their society is based on female friendship, and the most revered in their communities are the elders. The elders are the wisest, the most experienced, and have the most authority. The way elephants raise their calves, deal with sloppy teenagers, and mourn their dead is all so familiar to us. I wanted to tell the story of an extraordinary matriarch we got to know by trying to get under thick, wrinkled skin and behind her golden eyes.”
Stone and Deeble’s previous film, “The Queen of Trees,” won a Peabody and a United Nations Award.
Sony Pictures Classics snagged all rights in North America, Middle East, South Africa, Scandinavia, Benelux, India, and worldwide airlines to Dogwoof’s “Maiden,” according to Deadline. The doc centers on the first all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989.
Magnolia Pictures scooped up Swedish pic “Aniara.” Directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja, the sci-fi follows a ship carrying settlers to Mars after Earth is deemed uninhabitable. When the ship is knocked off-course, “the consumption-obsessed passengers [begin] to consider their place in the universe,” Deadline summarizes.
“We are crazy happy that Magnolia is on board this ship,” Kågerman said in a statement.
“I want [audiences] to reflect on the space craft they are already on, called Earth,” she told us in a soon-to-be-published interview. “In a vast universe, it’s quite an unique and fantastic place.” The director added, “Being behind a camera is a great way to go places and meet people you wouldn’t have otherwise. The human condition is what really interests me.”
