Known Associates Acquires African Rights to Raoul Peck’s Cannes Prizewinner ‘Ernest Cole: Lost and Found’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias Known Associates Entertainment has acquired all African rights to Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” the Cannes prize-winning documentary about the fearless apartheid-era South African photographer that opens the Joburg Film Festival on March 11.

The acquisition by the fast-growing South African media company is part of a broader plan to ramp up its distribution efforts both on the African continent and in the U.S., beginning with the March 26 theatrical rollout of “Lost and Found” in South Africa. “It’s probably one of the most important films to come out of South Africa in the last 30 years,” said Known Associates chairperson Joel Chikapa Phiri. “We’re very excited about it, and we’ve got lots of partners that are coming to join with us.” Described by Variety’s Owen Gleiberman as a “penetrating portrait” of the iconic photographer, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” traces the career and life of Cole, who beginning in the late 1950s began chronicling everyday life under apartheid.

After fleeing the apartheid regime he arrived in New York City in 1966, where he published his groundbreaking book “House of Bondage,” an astonishing account of life under the racist South African regime.

While that book made Cole a celebrated figure in the world of photography, he struggled to adapt to life as an exile in New York.