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Oz distribs buy Carey Mulligan, Shia LaBeouf films

Most of the films on offer at the European Film Market in Berlin were so dull or unappealing more than one Australian distributor came home empty-handed.

Among the handful of deals, Transmission Films pre-bought Suffragette, an historical drama starring Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter. Studiocanal acquired Rock the Kasbah, a Barry Levinson-directed comedy featuring Bill Murray, Shia LaBeouf and Bruce Willis.

Based on true events, Suffragette revolves around women who joined the early feminist movement, turned to violence and were forced underground in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with an increasingly brutal State.

Streep will play political activist Emmeline Pankhurst in the film which starts shooting in the UK on February 24.

The director is Sarah Gavron, her second feature since 2007’s Brick Lane, the saga of a young Bangladeshi woman who arrives in 1980s London for an arranged marriage and a new life.

The writer is Abi Morgan, who wrote Brick Lane and The Iron Lady and co-wrote Shame with director Steve McQueen. The producers are Faye Ward and Alison Owen of the UK’S Ruby Films, which co-produced Saving Mr. Banks with Essential Media & Entertainment’s Ian Collie.

In Rock the Kasbah, Murray plays a burned out music manager who goes to Afghanistan on a United Service Organisations tour with his last remaining client. When he finds himself abandoned, penniless and without his passport, he discovers a young girl with an extraordinary voice, who stows away with him back to Kabul to compete on the popular TV show Afghan Star.

The cast also includes Zooey Deschanel and Kate Hudson. Mitch Glazer (The Recruit, TV’s Magic City) is the writer and the producers are Steve Bing and Bill Block.