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Sundance Winner ‘Writing With Fire’ Scores Raft of Global Sales, Reveals Trailer (EXCLUSIVE)

Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s documentary “Writing With Fire,” which won Audience and Special Jury awards at Sundance earlier this year, has sold to multiple territories.

Sales agent Autlook Filmsales has sold the film to to E&O (The Netherlands), BBC Storyville (U.K. and Ireland), Bertha Doc House (U.K. theatrical), YLE Finland, SVT (Sweden), Knowledge (Canada), NRK (Norway), DR Denmark, Madman (Australia and New Zealand), France TV (France), VRT (Belgium), Yes (Israel) and Pocket Cinema (Singapore). Negotiations are currently on with buyers in Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, Spain.

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The film shines a light on a unique, women-only news collective in small-town northern India, following the women behind news organization Khabar Lahariya as they make the transition from print to digital, shooting stories on their mobile phones and disseminating via their YouTube channel.

A trailer for the film (above) has been released exclusively to Variety.

The film will have its U.K. premiere at Sundance London on July 30, after which it goes on a limited release across 35 U.K. Picturehouse and Bertha venues.

“The international market is embracing ‘Writing With Fire.’ We already secured sales into over 20 territories,” Autlook’s Salma Abdalla told Variety. “We can’t see wait to see the movie released broadly in 2022, in cinemas and TV. Many buyers had told us that ‘Writing With Fire’ is one of the most inspiring movies they have seen in 2021.”

“Writing With Fire” has met with universal acclaim wherever it has travelled and has gathered extremely positive reviews, including from Variety critic Jessica Kiang, who described the film as “accessible” and “engaging.”

Besides Sundance, the film has also won awards at the San Francisco, Krakow, Molodist, Seattle, Wisconsin and Washington film festivals.

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