Unknown Pleasures Buys China Rights to Cannes Winners
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- Unknown Pleasures Pictures acquired mainland China and Hong Kong rights to Cannes Grand Prix winner Minotaur and Critics Week top prize La Gradiva, with La Gradiva additionally picking up Taiwan rights.
- Minotaur, Andrey Zvyagintsev's first Cannes competition entry in nine years, received a 10-minute standing ovation at its premiere and is widely expected to become a 2027 Oscar contender.
- Both films are sold internationally by Mk2 Films, the Paris arthouse specialist with a long-standing relationship with Jia; Mubi took North America and UK rights to Minotaur while 1-2 Special acquired North America rights to La Gradiva.
- Unknown Pleasures Pictures launched in March 2025 and scored its first release with Italian hit There's Still Tomorrow, which grossed more than $6M in China.
- At last year's Cannes the company acquired Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value — which won the Grand Prix and went on to win Best International Feature Film at the Oscars — alongside Love On Trial and Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush from Cannes Classics.
Why it matters: Unknown Pleasures Pictures is emerging as the primary pipeline for Cannes competition winners into Chinese theaters: in two Cannes editions it has now acquired two Grand Prix winners and two additional arthouse titles, including Sentimental Value which converted from Cannes top prize to an Oscar. Chinese audiences gain access to Zvyagintsev's first major Cannes competition return in nearly a decade through a distributor whose $6M debut gross on There's Still Tomorrow proved the commercial case.
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