EXCLUSIVE: Cercamon has acquired international sales rights to South African director and writer John Trengove’s Apartheid era drama The Smell of Apples and released a first trailer ahead of its world premiere in Toronto.

Based on Mark Behr’s eponymous 1993 Booker Prize-nominated novel, the film follows a young boy growing up in a white utopia in Cape Town in the 1970s at the height of the racial segregation imposed by the Apartheid system.

On the surface his family leads a charmed life, but the complex family drama will expose the brutality beneath the idyllic façade.

“John Trengove has made a film of remarkable precision and emotional force,” said Sébastien Chesneau, Founder and CEO of sales company Cercamon.

“Through the intimate story of one family, The Smell of Apples exposes how violence and ideology take hold behind the façade of an idyllic world. It is bold, unsettling and deeply human cinema, and we are proud to bring it to international audiences as it begins its journey in Toronto.”

Trengove previously made waves with The Wound, which debuted at Sundance in 2017 before making it onto the nomination longlist for the Academy Award for the then Best Foreign Language Film category in 2018.

In between times, Trengove has also directed Berlinale-selected toxic masculinity drama Manodrome, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody, as well as episodes of Cape Town-set crime show White Lies.

New film The Smell of Apples is produced by Eric Abraham and Jack Sidey at Portobello Productions), Cait Pansegrouw at Cadence) and Frank Hoeve at BALDR Films.

It is the second South African film produced by Abraham and Sidey at London-based Portobello Productions, whose credits include the Academy Award-winning films Kolya and Ida.

“Cercamon are the perfect fit for The Smell of Apples,” said Sidey. “They grasped the film’s nuance and  emotional impact from the very first conversation, and we’re confident their expertise and formidable reputation will carry the film to a global audience.”

The Afrikaans and English-language film will premiere in TIFF’s Platform section, giving it a potential pathway to the Best International Feature Film race at the 99th Academy Awards. Under new Academy Awards rules, a non-English-language winner of the main TIFF Platform award will be eligible for consideration in the category.

Marvel fans are being given some homework.

Avengers: Doomsday director Joe Russo says watching Avengers: Endgame is “required” to understand the upcoming film.

Russo told Fandango that the upcoming Avengers: Endgame Encore — a re-release of the 2019 blockbuster featuring additional footage — is “going to connect the story of the two movies. There’s a natural progression from Endgame into Doomsday, which is also inclusive of all the other stories that have been playing out. But I think it’s important to see Endgame again in theaters for two reasons: One, you’re going to have a lot of fun … and two, I think it’s required viewing for following the story in Doomsday.”

His brother and directing partner Anthony Russo added, “If you saw Endgame when it was originally released, you couldn’t see this coming.”

With its 185 minute runtime, Endgame Encore has roughly four minutes of extra footage and includes a sneak peek at Doomsday. The film will be released on Sept. 25.

Endgame currently stands at $2.79 billion at the global box office, one notch behind the all-time record holder, the 2009 smash Avatar, which has a $2.9 billion lifetime gross. If the Endgame re-release generates enough in ticket sales, it could overthrow Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie of all time.

Doomsday is released Dec. 18 and has already racked up millions in advance ticket sales.

Doomsday returns Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU in a new role, as the villainous Doctor Doom, and has a sprawling cast, ranging from stars of the original 2000s X-Men movies such as Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, to original Avengers castmembers such as Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, to Black Panther‘s Letitia Wright and Winston Duke, to more recent MCU additions, such as Shang-Chi‘s Simu Liu and Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn. There’s also Captain America actor Anthony Mackie and Ant-Man star Paul Rudd, in addition to Thunderbolts players Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russell and David Harbour.