Oscilloscope Lights Fuse On Fireworks Docu ‘Brimstone & Glory’ — Cannes

Oscilloscope Laboratories has made a safe and sane pickup at Cannes, lighting up North American rights to the fireworks documentary Brimstone & Glory. The distributor plans a 2017 theatrical burst.

The details of director Viktor Jakovleski’s film: The National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, Mexico, is a site of festivity unlike any other in the world. In celebration of San Juan de Dios, patron saint of firework makers, conflagrant revelry engulfs the town for 10 days. Artisans show off their technical virtuosity; up-and-comers create their own rowdy, lo-fi combustibles; and dozens of teams build larger-than-life papier-mâché bulls to parade into the town square, adorned with fireworks that blow up in all directions. More than three-quarters of Tultepec’s residents work in pyrotechnics, making the festival more than revelry for revelry’s sake. It is a celebration that anchors a way of life built around a generations-old, homegrown business of making fireworks by hand. Brimstone & Glory honors the spirit of Tultepec’s community and celebrates celebration itself.

“Brimstone & Glory is not just an epic feast for the eyes and the ears, though it is that, it’s a brilliant display of portraiture,” Oscilloscope’s Dan Berger said. “It introduces us to people and a community — intimately, intensely and beautifully – and sets the stage for a long career for Viktor. I have no doubt this is just the beginning.”

The film was produced by Dan Janvey, Elizabeth Lodge Stepp, Kellen Quinn, Affonso Gonçalves, Benh Zeitlin, Casey Coleman, Antonio ‘Tonitzin’ Gómez, Jakovleski and Erdem Karahan. The film was funded by Cinereach and is a Court 13 and Department of Motion Pictures production. Mongrel is selling international rights.