Grégoire Merin’s Kinology has scored big international sales with Leila See’s suspenseful survival thriller “Hell in Paradise,” produced by Europacorp’s “Lucy” producers.
Buyers include Spain’s Der Planeta, Poland’s DiMeo Film, the Middle East’s Falcon, India’s Star, the former Yugoslavia’s Blitz and the airline Ricochet. Kinology is finalizing conversations in the UK, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Eastern Europe.
Produced by Virginie Sylla and inspired by a true story, the film stars Nora Arneseder and Maria Bello. Arneseder plays Nina, a French girl who leaves her hometown of Marseille in hopes of a better life and takes her first job as a receptionist at a luxury resort hotel on the fictional island of Matara. But when tragedy befalls the hotel, Nina finds herself caught in an unrelenting spiral of lies and manipulation. Accused of a crime she didn’t commit and sentenced to life in prison, she has no choice but to run through the traps and escape this paradise that has become hell.
Karin Sila (“Butterfly Kisses”) wrote the screenplay. The cast also includes Josephine de la Baume, Ali Khan, Shubham Saraf and Ranjit Krishnama.
The female-led thriller complements EuropaCorp’s hit series from director Luc Besson, from Taken to Lucy.
The film is “a story of resilience and a reminder to never give up, even in the darkest moments. That’s the power of film: experiencing powerful emotions,” said director Shi. She is known for directing the 2016 action film “Street Flow” (“The Banreusers”), which she co-directed with Kerry James on Netflix, which topped the streamer’s most-watched movies chart.
When Silla previously announced the project, she told Variety that she felt compelled to tell this “story of empowerment” about “this young woman who must take control of her own destiny” after being “caught in a web of lies, surrounded by men who see her as easy prey in a culture she knows nothing about.”
