Festival Central - Sundance Film Festival

The move consolidates Rezo's drive into high-profile U.S. indie fare: Gallic company picked up John Sayles' Danny Glover starrer "Honeydripper" last year.

The sales pact also underscores the increasing importance of French sales agents for a U.S. indie sector that needs to recoup beyond the U.S. domestic market. Deal was negotiated during the Sundance Film Festival between Sebastien Chesneau, head of world sales at Rezo, and William Morris Agency's Rena Ronson and Jerome Duboz on behalf of Courtney Hunt and Donald Harwood.

Hunt's debut, which scored a Sony Pictures Classics buy for North America, turns on the friendship between a cash-strapped single mom (Melissa Leo, "21 Grams") and a widowed Mohawk woman (Misty Upham, "Edge of America") who team to smuggle immigrants across the icy St. Lawrence River from Canada into the U.S.

"Watching the struggles and hopes of these two women was a reminder of what American independent films are about: great storytelling, subtle and powerful performances and a different point of view on social, moral issues" Chesneau said.

Based out of Paris, Rezo, a production, distribution and sales company, has considerable festival clout -- it had six films at the Cannes fest last year -- and a strong lineup of young directors -- three of its Cannes films were by first-time directors. It also distributed Julie Delpy's directorial debut, "2 Days in Paris," which bowed in Berlin last year.