Sony Pictures Classics will distribute Ralph Fiennes’ The White Crow, a biopic about Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, in North America and other important markets including in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Asia (excluding China, Japan, and Singapore), Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, Deadline reported. The deal was announced on Monday.
Nureyev, called the “Lord of Dance”, sensationally defected to France at the height of the Cold War in 1961, despite the KGB’s efforts to stop him. The White Crow, based on Julie Kavanagh’s 2007 biography Nureyev: The Life, chronicles this defection, which was engineered by the dancer’s best friend, 21-year-old Parisian Clara Saint. The biopic has been written by David Hare and stars Russian dancer Oleg Ivenko as Nureyev, Adèle Exarchopoulos as Saint, and Fiennes as ballet coach Alexander Pushkin.
The White Crow has been produced by BBC Films, Magnolia Mae Films, Metalwork Pictures, Montebello Productions and Work in Progress.
“Ralph Fiennes has fully captured the times and early life of Rudolph Nureyev in the most thrilling way possible with the pulsing energy of the man himself,” said Sony Pictures Classics in a press statement. “From Nureyev’s rich life experience in Russia and Paris to his suspenseful defection to the West, we are immersed in an authentic story we’ve never seen before. This is one of those rare movies that crosses so many borders culturally as a satisfying entertainment.”
Fiennes’s acting credits include Schindler’s List (1993), The English Patient (1996) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He also played Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies. He made his directorial debut in 2011 with Coriolanus and has also made The Invisible Woman (2013).