August 26, 2014 - 19:08 AMT
Cinema Guild nabs Viggo Mortensen’s Cannes winner “Jauja”

Cinema Guild has bought all U.S. distribution rights to writer-director Lisandro Alonso’s “Jauja”, which is produced by and stars Viggo Mortensen, Variety said.

“Jauja” premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Award. It’s also an official selection of the Toronto and New York Film Festivals.

“Jauja” will open theatrically in early 2015.

The story is set in 1882 at a remote Patagonian military outpost during the a genocidal campaign against the aboriginal population. Mortensen portrays a captain who has come from Denmark with his 15-year-old daughter to take an engineering job with the Argentine army. The daughter falls for a young soldier and they run away together.

All five of Alonso’s films — “Liverpool” (2008), “Fantasma” (2006), “Los Muertos” (2004) and “La Libertad” (2001) — have premiered at Cannes. He has been named this year’s Filmmaker in Residence of the New York Film Festival.

Variety’s Scott Foundas gave “Jauja” a positive review, calling it a “hallucinatory head trip.”