Following debuts at the Locarno and Sarajevo Film Festivals, Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the North American rights for the Hungarian animated thriller Ruben Brandt, Collector.
The film is written and directed by Milorad Kristic, whose previous short film My Baby Left Me won the Golden Berlin Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlin Film Festival, and follows the titular psychotherapist as he is forced to steal 13 paintings from the world’s renowned museums and private collections to prevent his suffering from terrible nightmares he has as a result of subliminal messaging he received as a child.
Accompanied by his four patients, he and his band of thieves strike regularly and with great success: the Louvre, Tate, Uffizi, Hermitage, MoMA. “The Collector” quickly becomes the most wanted criminal in the world. Gangsters and headhunters chase him around the world while the reward for his capture keeps rising, approaching a hundred million dollars. A cartel of insurance companies entrusts Mike Kowalski, a private detective and leading expert on art theft, to solve the “Collector Case.”
Ruben Brandt, Collector, which stars Ivan Kamarás, Gabriella Hámori and Zalán Makranczi, opened to rave reviews from critics and audiences alike at the festivals and will be released by Sony Pictures Classics towards the end of 2019 for a qualifying run at the Oscars.
