Cinematical

IFC Films has certainly been busy making deals at Cannes. As I posted a few days ago, they picked up Josh Safdie's indie comedy The Pleasure of Being Robbed and Arnaud Desplechin's drama A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), which impressed our own Kim Voynar with its "humor, beauty and depth." Now they've added two more films to their arsenal, according to indieWIRE, both European dramas.

The latest from director Olivier Assayas (Demonlover, Clean, Boarding Gate) is entitled Summer Hours and stars Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling and Jérémie Renier as siblings dealing with the death of their mother. They must make hard decisions about what to do with her valuable estate and all its many possessions. The film opened in France in early March. IFC plans a US theatrical release next year. More information in French is available at the official, super-duper, Flash enabled, slow loading official site.

Russian dramatic fairy tale Mermaid (pictured) won Anna Melikyan the prize for best director when the film played in the World Cinema section at Sundance this year. The film follows a young girl with telekinetic powers into adulthood, where she encounters the mysteries of love. Mariya Shalayeva plays Alisa as an adult. Mermaid has been provoking good reaction on the festival circuit; IFC will not release it in theaters, but instead add it to the offerings on its "Festival Direct" video on demand service, already available on many US cable systems. More infromation is available on the Russian-language official site.