Strand Releasing acquires Cannes comedy drama “Like Crazy”

PanARMENIAN.Net - L.A.-based Strand Releasing has acquired U.S. rights to Paolo Virzi’s critically-aclaimed comedy drama “Like Crazy” which world premiered at Cannes’s Directors Fortnight, Variety reports.

Sold by Bac Films, “Like Crazy” stars Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as a colorful pathological liar locked up in a mental institution who crosses paths with another patient (Micaela Ramazzotti), whom she takes under her wing. Forming a reckless duo, the two women escape the hospital and embark on a life-changing road trip from Tuscany to Rome.

Variety‘s review called “Like Crazy” a “terrific comedy-drama about two women in a mental institution that avoids the pitfalls such a scenario could encounter and boasts delicious dialogue with a rare sense of balance.”

Strand Releasing, which last worked with Bac Films on another Directors’Fortnight player “Love at First Fight,” will release “Like Crazy” next Spring.

“It’s beautiful film, and the third film we’ve handled starring Valeria, having done Francois Ozon’s ‘Time to Leave’ and ‘Cote d’Azur,'” said Marcus Hu, the co-founder of Strand Releasing.

Bac Films’s Gilles Sousa, who negotiated the deal with Strand, said “‘Like Crazy’ has all the ingredients to click with U.S. audiences; it mixes social themes that are universal with some adventure, comedic relief and it features two beautiful, emotional performances.”

“Like Crazy” was produced by Raffaella Leone and Marco Belardi for Lotus Production, a Leone Film Group company, and co-produced by Bac Films and Manny Films, who last teamed on Virzi’s previous hit “Human Capital.”

Bac Films is also selling Virzi’s first English-language film, “The Leisure Seeker” starring Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren, which Sony Pictures Classics recently acquired for the U.S., Latin America, Asia (excluding Japan), Eastern Europe, Portugal and South Africa.