Juno Films acquired the rights of the USA and Canada for the documentary The most beautiful boy in the world, Kristina Lindstom and Kristian Petri’s film premiered at this year’s World Documentary Competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Produced by Stockholm-based Stantar Gardell’s Mantaray Film, the film follows former child star Björn Andrésen, who played Tadzio in the 1971 film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Luchino Visconti Death in Venice. Juno Films will release the film in theaters in May 2021.
The new film follows Andrésen, who reached international stardom at the age of fifteen on the basis of his iconic appearance, while he reflects wistfully on his stardom. In 1969, Visconti traveled across Europe in search of the perfect boy to personify absolute beauty in the film, and a year later he discovered Andrésen, a shy Swedish teenager who brought him international fame overnight and led him to spend a short but intense part of his youth turbulence between the Lido of Venice, London, the Cannes Film Festival and distant Japan.
Related Story
Sundance Film Festival 2021 defines the schedule of lectures and events
In 1971 at the London premiere of Death in Venice, the director proclaimed his Tadzio as “the most beautiful boy in the world”. Fifty years after the premiere, Andrésen takes us on a remarkable journey made up of personal memories, cinema history, stars and tragic events in what may be his last attempt to put his life on track.
“We shot The most beautiful boy in the world for five years in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Budapest, Venice and Tokyo, following in Björn’s footsteps ”, says director Kristian Petri. Co-director Kristina Lindstrom adds, “It’s a story about obsession with beauty, about desire and sacrifice, about a boy whose life changed forever when filmmaker Luchino Visconti declared him, the ‘most beautiful boy in the world’. Who was this boy and what happened to him? This film allows us to hear the boy’s own story. He, who was made an image by others, an icon, a fantasy, who took over his young life ”.
The deal was negotiated by Elizabeth Sheldon, founding partner and CEO of Juno Films. Film Boutique recently announced that it has acquired worldwide sales rights.