Sony Pictures Classics has picked up rights to Lyrebird, the directorial debut of billionaire businessman Dan Friedkin.
The pact is for North American rights and marks one of the only sales at an acquisitions market that could be charitably described as moribund. That could change if, as rumored, a deep-pocketed buyer ponies up for the Hugh Jackman-led school embezzlement drama Bad Education.
Lyrebird centers on a former Dutch resistance member (Claes Bang) who investigates the theft of art in the wake of World War II, specifically the sale of a Vermeer to the Nazis by a painter (Guy Pearce). The cast also includes Vicky Krieps and Roland Moller.
