Bleiberg Entertainment will be selling worldwide rights at the TIFF market to historical drama People of The Book, we can reveal.
Directed by Michael Haussman (Edge of the World), and based on the book of the same name written by Pulitzer prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks, filming has recently wrapped in the Valencia region of Spain, including at Ciudad de la Luz in Alicante, and in Trieste and Venice in Italy.
The film “tracks the creation and survival of a sacred religious artifact across 500 years, weaving back and forth between a series of interconnected chapters that span across several centuries and countries including pre and post inquisition Spain, 17th century Venice, Nazi occupied Bosnia and a contemporary narrative focusing on an Iraqi refugee family’s harrowing escape journey from ISIS held Mosul to safety in Europe”.
Adapted for the screen by Oscar-nominated Petter Skavlan (Kon-Tiki), the film is produced by Miriam Segal (The Infiltrator) and marks the first project for Good Films Studios Spain, the joint venture between the Spanish government, Canadian-U.S. outfit Orogen Media and Segal’s Good Films.
Earlier this summer the Spanish government’s investment company SETT (Spanish Society for Technological Transformation) made two remarkable investments worth a combined €40M in production companies Ítaca Films Madrid and Good Films Studios Spain based in Alicante.
Ítaca Films Madrid received €20m to create a Spanish arm of Mexico’s Grupo Ítaca, to produce 26 film and TV productions worth a combined €419m over the next 10 years. Good Films Studios Spain, a public-private initiative overseen by Segal, also got €20M to develop, finance, produce and sell mid-sized international productions budgeted at between €17m and €25m. The plan is to shoot 20 films at Ciudad de la Luz over the next decade, beginning with People of The Book.
Cast on the project includes Ziad Bakri, Rania Ben Fattoum, Ankido Hussen, Luca Ferrini, Giorgia Sinicorni, Pasquale Esposito and Jose Luis Ferrier.
HODs include Oscar-winning make-up artist Julie Dartnell (Les Misérables), Spanish production designer, Edou Hydallgo, and costume designer Cristina Sopeña, as well as DOP Diego Romero. The film is projected to be completed by the end of the year and the filmmakers aim to debut at one of the major international film festivals in 2027.
Bleiberg Entertainment will be presenting the film at the TIFF market and showing first footage for buyers. Negotiations for the sales attachment were handled by Ariel and Ehud Bleiberg for Bleiberg Entertainment and by Miriam Segal for Good Films Collective.
“This has been one of the most challenging projects I have ever developed and produced. It has been an extraordinary journey, over many years. I am enterally grateful for the opportunity to bring this incredible, resonant, truly cinematic, epic narrative to the screen,” said Segal, also know for producing recent political drama War Of Words.
“When I read this script and understood the scope and ambition of the entire project and the way GOOD films planned to bring it to life with the whole new operation in Spain, I told everyone on our team that we had to be a part of it, no matter what. To be involved with such a universally profound, artistic film like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I think buyers, critics and audiences alike will recognize its potential,” added Ariel Bleiberg, Head of Acquisition and Development for Bleiberg.
