“To the Ends of the Earth,” directed by Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa has added a handful of international distribution deals. The Uzbekistan-set drama had festival premieres in recent weeks in Locarno and Toronto.
Rights were licensed by sales agent Free Stone Productions to mainland China’s Hugoeast, and by AV Jet for Taiwan. For Brazil, rights were acquired by Zeta Film. Trigon Films took the rights for Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein.
The license deals are in addition to the sale of French rights to Eurozoom that was announced in May. Eurozoom, which previously handled other Kurosawa titles including “Before We Vanish,” and “Creepy,” is set to release the film on Oct. 23.
Starring Atsuko Maeda, Ryo Kase, and Shota Sometani, the film is a rare example of a Japanese-Uzbekistan co-production. Production is by Eiko Mizuno-Gray and Jason Gray of Tokyo-based Loaded Films and Toshikazu Nishigaya of Tokyo Theatres. Uzbekistan’s national cinema agency Uzbekkino serves as co-producer, with backing from the Ministry of Tourism, through the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Tourism Development.
The story involves the host of a popular travel show who is in fact insular and shy on a trip to Central Asia, where her assignment calls for the filming of a mythical fish. As things go wrong, and team members return to Tokyo, she discovers a new freedom in the mountains.
