SWANDOWN will screen in the ACID’s 20th anniversary Cannes selection.

Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair’s “playfully absurd” travelogue documentary, Swandown has been selected to screen in the France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (ACID) section at the Cannes Film Festival, which celebrates innovation and experimentation in filmmaking and aims to giving greater visibility to new talent. The film, which is backed by the BFI Film Fund, is produced by Lisa Marie Russo and executive produced by Kate Ogborn for Fly Film.

This is the fourth BFI-backed title at the festival. Yesterday it was revealed that three films supported through the BFI Film Fund will have world premieres at Cannes 2013: The Director’s Fortnight will host the World Premiere of The Selfish Giant, the highly anticipated second feature from acclaimed writer/director, Clio Barnard (The Arbor), produced by Tracy O’Riordan for Moonspun Films. Irish director Ruairi Robinson’s ambitious Sci-Fi thriller debut Last Days on Mars, produced by Michael Kuhn and Andrea Cornwell for Qwerty Films, will also premiere in the Director’s Fortnight. Scottish writer/director Paul Wright’s debut feature, For Those In Peril, produced by Mary Burke and Polly Stokes for Warp Films, will appear in Cannes’ International Critics’ Week. All three films received production funding from the BFI Film Fund, withThe Selfish Giant, Swandown, and For Those In Peril also receiving support throughout their development.

More information about Swandown

Swandown is a travelogue and odyssey of Olympian ambition; a poetic film-diary about encounter, myth and culture. It is also an endurance test and pedal-marathon in which Andrew Kötting (the filmmaker) and Iain Sinclair (the writer) pedal a swan-shaped pedalo from the seaside in Hastings to Hackney in London, via the English inland waterways.  With a nod to Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and a pinch of Dada, Swandown documents their epic journey, on which they are joined by invited guests including comedian Stewart Lee, writer Alan Moore and actor Dudley Sutton.Swandown is a Fly Film production. Directed by Andrew Kötting and written and co-plotted by Iain Sinclair, the film is backed by BFI Film Fund, in association with Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation, Abandon Normal Devices, Cornerhouse Artist Film and Screen South. The Producer is Lisa Marie Russo, Executive Producers are Kate Ogborn and Marc Munden.

Swandown has been picked up for distribution in France by ED Distribution who plan to release the film in the autumn.  It is distributed in the UK by Cornerhouse Artist Film with international sales handled by Wavelength Pictures.