Soccer Drama ‘Heysel 85’ Racks up International Sales, Led by Icon in U.K.

Violet Braeckman in 'Heysel 85' Toon-Aerts-Guillaume-Van-Laethem

French sales outfit Salaud Morisset has inked multiple international territory deals for Teodora Ana Mihai’s Heysel 85, lead by Icon Film Distribution, which picked up rights for the U.K. and Ireland.

The feature tells the inside story of the Heysel Stadium disaster, at the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool Football Club and Juventus in Brussels, in which 39 soccer fans were killed. The disaster played out on live TV to an estimated audience of some 400 million viewers. Many of the deaths occurred before kick-off and the match was allowed to go ahead.

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What made the tragedy all the more grim is that events were broadcast on live TV to an estimated audience of 400 million viewers. Even after the deaths, many of which happened before kick-off, the match went ahead.

Heysel 85 focuses on the events from the point of view of Marie (Violet Braeckman), press attaché of the mayor of Brussels, and Luca (Matteo Simoni), a young journalist covering the match for the Italian media.

Alongside the U.K. and Ireland, Salaud Morisset signed deals for the film with Portugal (Films4You), the Baltics (Latvian Theatrical Distribution), Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia (Cinestar), and Uruguay (Cinematica Uruguaya).

Heysel 85 racked up a slate of sales shortly after its world premiere in Berlin last month, including deals with Plaion for Italy and Smile Entertainment for the Nordic territories. Kinepolis Film Distribution will release the film theatrically in Benelux.

Salaud Morisset said it is in negotiations with Japanese and South Korean buyers for the film and is hoping to spark further interest from other Asian distributors at this week’s Filmart in Hong Kong.