Sony Pictures Classics Lands Hungarian Animated ‘Ruben Brandt, Collector’

Sony Pictures Classics acquired North America and Latin American rights to Milorad Krstic-directed Ruben Brandt, Collector. The English language animated film from Hungary played at the Locarno and Sarajevo Film Festivals. Krstic’s earlier short film My Baby Left Me won the short film Golden Berlin Bear. Pic will be released in 2019 with a qualifying release for awards.

Ruben Brandt, a famous psychotherapist, 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.”

Krstic wrote the script and pic was produced by Péter Miskolczi, Radmila Roczkov. Hermina Roczkov and Janos Kurdy-Feher.

The film was financed by the Hungarian National Film Fund and the Hungarian Film Incentive. The deal was negotiated between Sony Pictures Classics and HNFF World Sales.