Cappu Films to shop Slamdance Alzheimer's drama 'Banr' at Busan

Hong Kong's Cappu Films has taken worldwide sales on Banr, a Canadian-Chinese drama about a 40-year marriage tested by Alzheimer's disease, and will offer it to buyers at the Asian Contents & Film Market in Busan, according to Variety.

Worldwide sales means the company licences the film to distributors country by country. The market is the buying arm attached to the Busan International Film Festival, where sales organisations meet local buyers.

Banr had its world premiere in the Narrative Features line-up at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival, the United States independent showcase. That section is reserved for fictional features. The film centres on an older couple facing memory loss after four decades together.

Sui Li and Baoqing Li play the couple. Writer-director Erica Xia-Hou plays their daughter, working opposite a largely non-professional supporting cast, according to Variety.

Xia-Hou wrote, directed and produced the film. Roughly two-thirds of it was shot in an observational, documentary style, with long takes and natural light rather than a conventional scripted shoot.

Xia-Hou came to directing after work inside mainstream Chinese cinema. She co-wrote Fox Hunt with director Leo Zhang and starred in it opposite Tony Leung Chiu-wai. She earlier co-wrote and acted in the 2017 Jackie Chan vehicle Bleeding Steel. Cappu Films already holds exclusive international rights to Fox Hunt.

What makes this stand out is the approach. A family story performed by non-professionals and filmed like a documentary lives or dies on trust. The camera stays close.

Cappu arrives in Busan with a crowded bag. It boarded the fantasy Starbright, starring John Rhys-Davies and Diego Boneta, just ahead of the market, according to Variety. The slate also includes Shan Jiang's Shanghai-set queer romance Ephemera, which premiered at Tribeca, and Joy Hopwood's Australian dramedy Her Last Laugh, starring Peter Thurnwald and Ana Thu Nguyen.

The company is also handling the Second World War spy series Operation Doolittle as worldwide sales agent at the same market, according to Variety. For buyers, this means one meeting can cover film and series. For Banr, it means a small family drama goes looking for screens alongside bigger genre titles.