1 month ago
Former LevelK and Memento International executive Derek Lui has launched a Sydney-based income agency, Surprise H, pinch an first slate of 3 films to beryllium introduced to buyers successful Cannes.
Lui says nan first slate bespeak nan company’s attraction connected “emotionally driven and unique storytelling pinch beardown world potential”.
Leading nan slate is I Am Going To Miss You, directed by Brazil’s Daniel Ribeiro and produced by Ribeiro and Diana Almeida, which received its world premiere astatine BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival successful March, and had its Latin American premiere astatine nan Guadalajara International Film Festival earlier this month.
The relationship-driven play follows a transgender mates navigating love, ambition and change. Ribeiro’s erstwhile characteristic The Way He Looks (2014) won nan Teddy Award and nan FIPRESCI Prize astatine Berlin International Film Festival.
Also connected nan slate is Levitating, directed by Indonesia’s Wregas Bhanuteja, which premiered successful nan World Cinema Dramatic Competition astatine this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Set wrong nan world of Indonesian trance parties, nan movie blends nan supernatural and nan modern successful a visually unique activity exploring community, personality and nan pursuit of meaning.
Produced by Indonesia’s Rekata Studio, nan movie was group up arsenic an world co-production pinch Singapore’s Momo Film Co, Taiwan’s Aview Images and Les Contes Modernes successful France. Siera Tamihardja, Iman Usman and Amalia Rusdi produced for Rekata Studio.
Completing Surprise H’s first line-up is Korean-language ensemble play Larirang, directed by Sunhee Na and produced by Dong Heon Han, group during Lunar New Year wrong a Korean migrant family successful Los Angeles.
“What connects these films is simply a consciousness of affectional clarity and perspective,” said Lui. “They each transportation thing circumstantial successful sound aliases experience, but besides thing universal. That equilibrium is very overmuch astatine nan bosom of what we are building pinch Surprise H.”
Lui, who has antecedently worked successful income and consulting roles retired of Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Taipei and Paris – and precocious participated successful Berlinale Talents 2026 – describes Surprise H arsenic a boutique agency championing films that “connect done feeling, position and originality.”
The company’s sanction reflects its ngo of representing films that some astonishment viewers and “hit pinch nan heart”.
“Surprise H comes from nan thought that immoderate of nan astir powerful films are not ever nan loudest, but nan ones that enactment pinch you,” said Lui. “In a marketplace that is becoming progressively challenging and accelerated moving, we are willing successful helping those films trim through, whether they move you, situation you aliases drawback you disconnected defender successful an unexpected way. It is astir uncovering nan correct relationship betwixt nan film, nan assemblage and nan moment.”
The institution will beryllium making its marketplace debut successful Cannes and expects to adhd much titles to its roster successful coming months.
