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Fiorella Moretti and Hedi Zardi’s Paris-based sales agency Luxbox has closed several territory deals on Carlos Sironi’s “Sole,” which screened in Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section and Toronto Film Festival’s Discovery sidebar. The film just won the audience award at Pingyao Intl. Film Festival in China and a Special Jury Mention for the lead actors at Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal.

The film, which will be released in Italy this week by Officina Ubu, has been picked up in France by Damien Megherbi and Justin Pechberty’s Les Valseurs. In the U.S., the film has been acquired by 1844 Entertainment, which previously enjoyed success with Luxbox’s “The Heiresses” and “Rojo.”

Luxbox also sealed deals on “Sole” with Fabula in Turkey and Cine Colombia in Colombia. Further deals will be announced soon.

In “Sole,” Sandra Drzymalska and Claudio Segaluscio star as a couple who pose as parents to be,...

The old adage about babies having babies gets markedly grown-up treatment in “Sole,” a crisp, reserved debut feature from Italian writer-director Carlo Sironi that examines the concept of parental instinct from an unusual point of view: that of a directionless young man play-acting the role of fatherhood, and finding himself unexpectedly broody in the process. An Italian-Polish co-production in which both nationalities feel narratively and spiritually integral to proceedings, Sironi’s film effectively blends the warm-blooded emotional stakes of classic Italian melodrama with the cooler, more rigorous language of new Eastern European cinema. It’s a head-turning hybrid that, while a little over-studied in parts, will travel well on the festival circuit, and is sure to feature prominently in new-director showcases.

Besides its more substantial virtues, “Sole” is surely notable for being among the bluest films ever committed to the screen — literally, that is, as Sironi bathes the screen in more shades of sky,...