Gregoire Melin’s Kinology has scored a raft of international sales on “Hell in Paradise,” Leila Sy’s suspense-packed survival thriller hailing from “Lucy” producers at EuropaCorp.
Buyers include Dea Planeta in Spain, Dimeo Films in Poland, Falcon in the Middle East, Star in India, Blitz in Ex-Yugoslavia, and Ricochet for the airlines. Kinology is finalizing conversations in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Russia and Eastern Europe.
Produced by Virginie Silla and inspired by a true story, the movie stars Nora Arnezeder and Maria Bello. Arnezeder plays Nina, a young French girl who leaves her native Marseille and accepts her first job as a receptionist at a luxurious hotel resort in a fictitious island named Mathara, hoping for a better life. But when a tragedy befalls the hotel, Nina is propelled in a relentless spiral of lies and manipulations. Wrongly accused and sentenced to life in prison, she will have no other choice but to run between traps and escape this paradise turned into hell.
Karine Silla (“A Butterfly Kiss”) penned the script. The cast also includes Josephine de la Baume, Alyy Khan, Shubahm Saraf and Ranjit Krishnama.
The female-led thriller complements EuropaCorp’s roster of hit franchises from Luc Besson, from “Taken” to “Lucy.”
The film is “a story of resilience, a reminder that you should never give up, even in the darkest moments. That’s the power of cinema: experiencing powerful emotions,” said Sy, who is best known for directing “Street Flow” (“Banlieusards”), a 2016 action film she co-directed with Kery James for Netflix and topped the chart of the most watched movies on the streamer.
Silla previously told Variety when announcing the project that she felt compelled to tell this “story of empowerment” about “this young woman who has to take control of her own destiny” after getting “caught in a web of lies, in a culture she knows nothing about, and surrounded by men who see her as easy prey.”