India’s Impact Films has expanded its 2026 Cannes acquisition slate to include films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Asghar Farhadi, and entered the Indonesian market for the first time.
All of a Sudden, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and acquired by CineFrance International and Japan’s Bitter’s End, is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s first French-language feature and tells the story of a care home director whose life is changed by his friendship with a Japanese theater director battling terminal cancer. Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto won Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Also on the list is Javier Ambrosi and director Javier Calvo’s “La Bola Negra” (The Black Ball), which was acquired from Goodfellas. This bizarre epic follows the lives of three men across 1932, 1937, and 2017 through Federico García Lorca’s unfinished manuscript. The film won the Best Director award at the film festival and garnered a long standing ovation.
Sheep in the Box, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda and acquired from Japan’s Gaga Corporation, is a futuristic drama about a grieving couple who welcomes a humanoid modeled after their deceased son. Farhadi’s “Parallel Tales,” acquired from France’s Charade, follows a Parisian novelist who begins scouting her neighbors across the street for material until the fiction she constructs begins to overtake their real lives. The Birthday Party by Léa Mysius, available from MK2 Films, is a home invasion thriller set in the French countryside where a woman’s birthday celebration turns violent with the arrival of a dangerous figure from her past.
On the Indonesian front, Impact Films has acquired Joko Anwar’s The Ghost in the Cell from South Korea’s Barunson E&A. In this horror-comedy, rival prison gangs and corrupt guards are forced to unite against an invisible supernatural entity that continues to murder inmates. The film attracted more than 3 million viewers in Indonesia, making it the country’s highest-grossing film in 2026. The company has also picked up Sidhartha Tata’s ‘Ikatan Darah’ from France’s WTFilms. The film follows a retired Pencak Silat player who confronts a criminal loan shark after his brother’s gambling debts put his family in danger.
“This year, we are showing films in French, Japanese, English, Norwegian, Russian and Spanish, and we feel a great responsibility to ensure that each film has a fair chance to be seen by film lovers and the general public in India. There will be certification challenges, but we are confident that we will overcome them,” said Ashwani Sharma, Founder and CEO of Impact Films.
“Indonesian cinema is known for its unique horror, which is extremely brutal and violent, and we want to embrace titles from these two genres and increase our selection based on audience response in the Indian market,” Sharma added.
This acquisition complements Impact Films’ previously announced Palme d’Or winner Fjord and Grand Prix winner Minotaur.
