Cannes '08: IFC Films locks up Italian mob hit 'Gomorrah'

We have spilled more than a few bits on Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah," the Grand Jury prize winner at this year's Festival de Cannes. So we are not displeased to find that U.S.-based film fans will have a chance to see this Italian mobster hit in U.S. theaters (and video-on-demand) through IFC Films.

An IFC rep told us it is too soon to tell exactly when "Gomorrah" will play in theaters, but it will simultaneously air on IFC In Theaters pay cable TV. (See this one in theaters if you can.) IFC also has a deal through Blockbuster Video which will carry "Gomorrah" later on.

"Just when we thought we had seen it all, Matteo Garrone has reinvented the Italian Mafia picture with such originality and invention that it seems entirely new," Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Entertainment, said in a statement. "We think that this completely fresh take on a well-known genre that includes 'The Godfather Trilogy,' 'The Sopranos' and 'Goodfellas' will take American audiences by storm as it did in Cannes. We look forward to getting it out to the widest possible audience."

IFC also locked up Cannes darlings including Arnaud Desplechin’s "A Christmas Tale"; Steve McQueen’s "Hunger," which won the Camera d’Or; "The Chaser," a seriously bloody Korean serial killer thriller by Na Hong-jin which played in the midnight official selection and is being adapted for Leonardo DiCaprio by Warner Bros.; and Josh Safdie’s "The Pleasure of Being Robbed," which closed the Director’s Fortnight.

-- Sheigh Crabtree

Photo: In one of five interweaving tales in "Gomorrah," two teenagers, with excess hormonal bravado, steal a cache of guns and pull off dangerous heists. Credit: Courtesy Cannes Film Festival.