Lanzmann’s Sisters find US distributor

The Four Sisters follows four Holocaust survivors

REALSCREEN: US distributor Cohen Media Group has acquired the North American rights to the latest project from veteran French documentary producer Claude Lanzmann.

Lanzmann’s The Four Sisters has been shopped to Cohen by its European distributor Arte Distribution, the sales arm of Franco-German cultural broadcaster Arte.

The four remastered films, originally intended for Lanzmann’s great epic, Shoah, are built around four female Holocaust survivors with unique destinies, each finding herself unexpectedly alive after the end of the Second World War. They were produced by Synecdoche and Arte France.

Lanzmann said: “What they have in common, apart from the specific horrors each one of them was subjected to, is their intelligence, an incisive, sharp and carnal intelligence that rejects all pretense and false reasons – in a word, idealism.”

John Kochman, executive VP of CMG, and Céline Payot-Lehmann, head of international distribution at Arte France, negotiated the agreement.

Cohen Media founder and CEO Charles S Cohen said: “We are honoured to have acquired these deeply moving and important films by a filmmaker who holds a unique place in cinema history.”

The deal was announced at the Realscreen Summit in Washington DC this week.