Netflix has acquired the North American and Latin American rights to Cannes Film Festival award-winners Girl and Happy As Lazzaro.
Pegged as the next Xavier Dolan, Lukas Dhont made a stunning debut with Girl” about 15-year-old Lara who is committed to becoming a professional ballerina, even as she is hit with adolescent frustrations and impatience because she was born a boy.
Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro” follows the meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi who is a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. The latter soon asks the former to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping.
Both films premiered in competition with Girl winning the best first film award, the Camera d’Or, while Lazzaro nabbed Best Screenplay. Netflix has also picked up the animated robot film Next Gen which was being sold at Cannes.
No word as to the rights for the rest of the world at this point.
