Fantastic Fest Award Winner ‘Bloody Tennis,’ Starring Sandra Guldberg Kampp and Helena Zengel, Sells to Further Territories (EXCLUSIVE)

Fantastic Fest award winner “Bloody Tennis,” starring Sandra Guldberg Kampp and Golden Globe nominee Helena Zengel, has sold to several further territories, ahead of its market premiere this week at the American Film Market in Los Angeles.

Nikias Chryssos‘ English-language horror film has been acquired in the U.K. and Ireland by Blue Finch, in Turkey by Bir Film and in Ukraine by Svoe Kino.

The new deals join previously announced sales to Shudder (U.S.), Umbrella Entertainment (Australia), BestFilm.eu (Baltics), Plaion Pictures (Italy), Extreme Film (Japan), 9th Plan (Poland), Gulf Film (Middle East) and Njutafilms (Scandinavia). The German distributor is Port au Prince.

The Playmaker Munich is handling international sales.

The film had its world premiere at Locarno Film Festival on Aug. 7 and went on to win best director among horror features at Fantastic Fest in Austin and the Méliès d’Argent in the feature film category at Slash Filmfestival. Other festivals screenings included Sitges, Thessaloniki and Tallinn Black Nights.

“Bloody Tennis” stars Guldberg Kampp (“Foundation”), Zengel (“News of the World,” “The Legend of Ochi”), Tracy Gotoas (“Safe House”), Lucie Zhang (“Paris, 13th District”), Lily Taïeb (“The French Dispatch,” “Bergman Island”), Elina Löwensohn (“Schindler’s List”), Zlatko Burić (“Triangle of Sadness”), Juliana Vieira Guerra and Vincent Romeo.

It has an original score from Jim Williams (“Titane,” “Raw” and “Possessor”). Cinematography is by Constantin Campean.

The film centers on Sophie (Guldberg Kampp) who is admitted to an elite tennis academy hidden deep in Southern Europe. There she must contend not only with the fierce brutality of her teammates but with the school’s increasingly sinister undercurrents, where competitive sports are taken to their extreme and only the hungriest survive.

The film “takes the world of elite sports to disturbing new heights, filled with brutal ambition, blood-sucking leeches and hard-hitting serves,” according to a statement from The Playmaker Munich.

The film is produced by Jonas Katzenstein and Maximilian Leo (“The Weight,” “The Assessment,” “Mother Mary”) of Augenschein Filmproduktion in co-production with Port au Prince Film & Kultur Produktion and ZDF – Das Kleine Fernsehspiel.

Chryssos’ first feature film “Der Bunker” premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and won the Next Wave Award for best feature at Fantastic Fest in Austin. His second feature film, “A Pure Place,” was developed at the Résidence of Cannes Film Festival and premiered at the Munich Film Festival, where it won the award for best director.