iW NEWS | Sony Classics Gets Cannes' "Waltz With Bashir"

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American and Latin American rights to Ari Folman's Cannes Film Festival competition entry, "Waltz With Bashir," its fourth deal of the festival after nabbing North American rights to The Dardenne Brothers' "The Silence of Lorna," Bent Hamer's "O'Horten," and James Toback's "Tyson." Based on Folman's own story, the animated documentary follows the filmmaker's exploration of his lost memories from the Lebanon War of the mid-1980s. "It's about dreams and it's about hallucinations, it's about the sub-conscious," noted Folman, during a Cannes press conference earlier this month. "The basic statement of the film and the understanding of the film is prosaic: wars are usless, completely useless, any war," offered Folman," continuing, he noted, "Because it is animated, I hope that a sixteen year old boy watching 'Waltz With Bashir' in Israel will say, 'I don't want to take any part in this war again.'" But, Folman also emphasized the personal nature of the independent project. "In a way," he noted, "I think that the film is not a political film, it just deals with the personal stories of the Israeli soldiers." indieWIRE reported on the film early in the festival. [Eugene Hernandez]