Nepal's Cannes winner Elephants in the Fog secures world sales and Oscar slot

Nepal's Oscar entry Elephants in the Fog is heading to cinemas around the world after a prize-winning run at Cannes.

The Nepalese thriller, directed by Abinash Bikram Shah, won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, a second strand of the festival that spotlights distinctive new voices. It has since been selected to represent Nepal in the international feature category at the 99th Academy Awards, the Oscars section for films made outside the United States, as reported by Variety.

Sales company Best Friend Forever has closed distribution deals across 10 territories for the film. The buyers include MetFilm Distribution in the U.K., Filmin in Spain, Vedette in Benelux, Trigon in Switzerland and Lev Cinema in Israel.

Further deals cover Jayantii in Australia, EFAR Films in India, PT Falcon in Indonesia and the Film Development Council of the Philippines in the Philippines. Silk Route has taken inflight rights, for screenings on aircraft.

In Europe and Latin America, Arizona Distribution and Les Valseurs Distribution have acquired the film for France, missingFILMs for Germany and Austria, and Imovision for Brazil. The Tea Folks Films will release the film in Nepal. North American rights were in advanced negotiations.

The story follows Pirati, matriarch of a Kinnar community in a forested Nepalese village, as she searches for one of her daughters who disappears during a nightly patrol organised against wild elephants. The film is known in Nepali as Tiniharu, according to Nepal News.

It runs 103 minutes and is listed by Cannes as a first film. The production brings together Nepal, France, Germany, Brazil and Norway. After Cannes, the film was programmed in the Centrepiece programme at the Toronto Film Festival as a North American premiere, and it has received Asia Pacific Screen Awards nominations for best film, best director and best performance.

Shah is a Nepalese writer, director and producer who previously co-wrote The Black Hen and Shambhala. His short Lori received a Special Mention in the Cannes Short Film Competition in 2022. Elephants in the Fog is produced by Underground Talkies Nepal, Les Valseurs and Die Gesellschaft DGS.

Best Friend Forever boarded the film as its sales company, the firm that sells cinema rights country by country. The Brussels-based company launched at Cannes in 2019 as a sister outfit to Paris-based Indie Sales and is managed by Martin Gondre, Charles Bin and Nicolas Eschbach.

For audiences, this means a short festival run is turning into a wider release. A Cannes prize does not guarantee screens, but an Oscar submission plus ready distributors gives exhibitors a clear date to plan around.