UK Sales Firm Strikes Slate Deal; Crackle Picks Up South African Pic; Filmmaker Launches Pod ‘How My Grandmother Won WWII’ — Global Briefs

New UK Sales Firm Strikes Slate Deal

EXCLUSIVE: New UK sales firm Mise En Scene has set a distribution deal with New York and European distributor SPI International which includes all six of the company’s first titles. SPI has picked up non-exclusive rights to What Lies Ahead, starring Rumer Willis and Emma Dumont; I Wrote This For You with Brennan Keel Cook; Eating Cars starring Lexi Pappas, Lauren Ashley Carter; Super November, starring Josie Long, Sean Biggerstaff and Heydon Prowse; Synchronicity, starring Sara Mitich and Ash Catherwood; and Reach, starring Garrett Clayton, Jordan Doww and Johnny James Fiore. London-based Mise En Scene was launched last March by Paul Yates and Netto Fernandes. SPI International and its aggregation service FilmBox operates a portfolio of 42 TV channels and digital services in multiple countries.

EXCLUSIVE: AVOD platform Crackle Plus has picked up rights to South African TIFF feature Sew The Winter to My Skin, which will launch on Monday, February 1. Written and directed by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka, the film stars Ezra Mabengeza (Miracle At St. Anna), Peter Kurth (A Heavy Heart), and Zolisa Xaluva (Knuckle City). Inspired by true events, the movie depicts the hunt, capture and trial of black rebel folk hero, John Kepe, a legendary outlaw of pre-apartheid South Africa. “We are immensely pleased to bring this heroic story to our viewers as the latest in Crackle’s collection of original programming,” said Philippe Guelton, president of Crackle Plus. “The film’s unique style and aesthetic relies heavily on visual and musical elements to recount the profound story.” Crackle’s slate includes Bucket List, Insomnia, Heroes of Lucha Libre, Lennox Lewis: The Untold Story, Robert the Bruce, Corporate Animals, On Point and Going From Broke. Sew The Winter To My Skin is distributed in North America by Screen Media, which like Crackle, is also owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment.

U.S. Filmmaker Launches Podcast How My Grandmother Won WWII

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. filmmaker Enid Zentelis (Evergreen) is launching podcast How My Grandmother Won WWII, which follows a her journey to discover the truth about her Hungarian-Jewish grandmother’s covert work for British Special Operations during WWII. Zentelis, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust in Hungary, recently discovered a cryptic letter from British Special Ops thanking her grandmother for her ‘highly confidential work’ during the war. The six-part limited series will begin airing weekly episodes today, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Zentelis is best known for her narrative feature films and episodic work. As a writer-director she has been nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and for the Nora Ephron prize a Tribeca Film Festival. The pod is co-hosted and produced by Zentelis and Vicki Vergolina (Let’s Get After It with Chris Cuomo). Story consultants were Marcella Steingart (Netflix’s Abstract) and Jennifer Brooks (Confronting ISIS).

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