Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the North American and other international rights to The Peasants, from Loving Vincent directors Hugh and D.K. Welchman and an oil-painted animated adaptation of the classic Polish novel of the same name.
SPC also picked up the rights in Latin America, the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand. The acquisition reunites the U.S. specialty distributor with The Peasants producer Breakthru Films, which is a co-producer on the animated-live action movie A Winter’s Journey, for which SPC earlier picked up the North American rights and much of the world.
“It’s an indescribable experience and achievement created by singular amazing artists,” Sony Pictures Classics said of The Peasants in a statement on Friday. The film is expected to be a contender in the Oscars’ best animation category after it bowed at the Toronto Film Festival.
The Peasants — about Jagna, a young woman battling for her own identity in a late 19th century Polish village — uses much of the same oil live action-painting-on-canvas techniques captured in the earlier Oscar-nominated animated film Loving Vincent.
Poland’s Oscar committee stirred controversy when it selected The Peasants as the country’s submission for the best international feature category at the 2024 Oscars, over The Green Border, a critically-acclaimed film from two-time Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland that remains without U.S. distribution.
“There could be no better partner in this endeavor than Sony Pictures Classics, with their incredible catalogue that includes many of our favorite films of all time and iconic animations that achieved the very rare feat of being nominated in the best international film category at the Oscars and Golden Globes,” The Peasants directors said in their own statement.
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