Pluto Film Acquires Worldwide Sales Rights to ‘Sick’ Ahead of Fantastic Fest World Premiere
Pluto Film Picks Up Worldwide Sales Rights to ‘Sick’ Ahead of Fantastic Fest World Premiere
The first acquisition news surrounding Horror Movies Uncut’s Fantastic Fest 2026 coverage has arrived before the festival even begins.
Berlin-based international sales company Pluto Film has acquired worldwide sales rights to Sick, the feature directorial debut of Agata Trzebuchowska, ahead of its world premiere at Fantastic Fest this month. The Polish psychological horror film will continue its festival run with its European premiere at the Sitges Film Festival in October.
Pluto Film also released a new teaser for the film as it begins positioning Sick for international buyers and audiences.
Written and directed by Trzebuchowska, Sick stars Konrad Kąkol, Katarzyna Łubik, Monika Niemczyk, Julian Świeżewski and Eliza Rycembel. Patryk Sielecki and Adrianna Rędzia produce.
The film follows 16-year-old Maks, played by Kąkol, and his older sister Emma, played by Łubik, who are sent to the Polish countryside during summer vacation to care for their ailing grandmother.
What begins as an isolated summer in the countryside gradually becomes something much more uncomfortable. With the siblings trapped together amid oppressive heat and their grandmother’s deteriorating condition, the relationship between Maks and Emma begins to change. Tensions increase, boundaries blur and the grandmother’s presence takes on a progressively more disturbing quality.
Rather than approaching adolescence as a conventional coming-of-age story, Sick uses horror to explore the confusion, dependency and changing relationships that accompany the transition into adulthood. Its emphasis on psychological unease and suggestion also positions the film between elevated genre filmmaking and arthouse drama as it enters the international festival circuit.
The project marks Trzebuchowska’s feature filmmaking debut, although she is already familiar to international audiences through her performance in Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, while Trzebuchowska received a European Film Award nomination for her performance.
She later moved behind the camera. Her short-film directing debut, Heat, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, while her subsequent short, Vacancy, screened at festivals including Go Short and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival.
Trzebuchowska is also developing two additional projects. This Is No Place for You, a Polish-French co-production, is currently in pre-production, while she is co-writing the surreal mockumentary Urke with Mateusz Kłodecki.
For producer Patryk Sielecki and Polish production company Lumisenta, Pluto Film’s acquisition provides Sick with an international sales partner before its first public screening.
“We are very happy that Sick has found its home at Pluto Film,” Sielecki said. “From our first conversations, we felt that they understood both the film’s provocative nature and the tenderness hidden beneath its genre elements.”
Sielecki described Fantastic Fest and Sitges as the beginning of the film’s international journey while emphasizing that the production sees potential for Sick beyond traditional genre audiences.
“We believe Sick can resonate beyond the genre circuit, as it is ultimately a deeply emotional story about adolescence, desire and dependence, centered on a relationship that crosses every possible boundary,” he added.
Pluto Film Managing Director Daniela Cölle similarly characterized the movie as the “horror of growing up,” rather than a traditional coming-of-age story.
Cölle said the company was drawn to the film’s examination of isolation, family relationships and the increasingly blurred boundaries between childhood and adulthood, as well as Trzebuchowska’s decision to create unease through suggestion rather than explicit explanation.
“We believe Sick is a bold debut with strong potential to connect with both international genre and crossover audiences who like edgy and original films,” Cölle said.
The acquisition also represents exactly the kind of activity HMU will be watching closely throughout Fantastic Fest.
The Austin festival has increasingly become more than a showcase for finished genre films. International sales companies, distributors and producers arrive looking for projects capable of moving beyond the festival circuit, and acquisitions can begin developing before audiences have even entered the theater.
Sick is now the first such title on our Fantastic Fest 2026 radar.
Pluto Film operates as an international sales, festival distribution, production and consultancy company based in Berlin, with a slate spanning arthouse, crossover, elevated genre, family films and documentaries. Its recent titles include Alina Serban’s I Matter, which premiered at the 2026 Venice International Film Festival, alongside Chica Checa, Summer War, Extraordinary, Atlas of the Universe, The Pupil and Funeral Casino Blues.
With worldwide sales representation already secured, Sick will now head to Austin for its world premiere at Fantastic Fest before traveling to Spain for its European premiere at Sitges in October.
Comments