Raven Banner picks up trio of films at AFM

The Toronto-based distributor has acquired the Canadian rights to the doc Cassandro the Exotico! (pictured), El Habitante and more.

Toronto-based Raven Banner Entertainment has inked a raft of deals at the American Film Market, picking up the Canadian rights to El Habitante (The Inhabitant), Cassandro the Exotico! and Fugue.

Written and directed by Guillermo Amoedo, El Habitante (Mexico/Chile) follows three sisters who try to rob a corrupt Mexican senator’s home and end up saving his daughter, only to discover that she’s possessed. Amoeda previously co-wrote the horror film’s The Green Inferno (2013) and Knock, Knock (2015) alongside Eli Roth. The deal for the film was negotiated with FilmSharks’ Guido Rud.

Meanwhile, Cassandro the Exotico! (France), a documentary from director Marie Losier (The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jay), tells the story of Cassandro the “Liberace of Lucha Libre,” an openly gay Mexican luchador throughout the final years of his career. The doc was co-written by Losier and Antoine Barraud (Portrait of The Artist).

Lastly, director Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s Fugue (Poland/Czech Republic/Sweden) follows a woman who returns to her family after experiencing prolonged memory loss. Fugue marks Smoczyńska’s second full-length feature following The Lure (2015). The deal for Fugue was negotiated with Paris, France-based sales agent Alpha Violet.

Recently, Raven Banner announced it had acquired the international sales rights to Emilio Portes’ Belzebuth (Mexico) for its AFM slate. Co-written by the director and Luis Carlos Fuentes, the Spanish- and English-language feature follows a special agent as he leads a police investigation into a series of mysterious deaths involving young children at the U.S.-Mexico border.