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Exclusive: Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Art of Love, the romantic drama from writer-director Betty Kaplan that stars Esai Morales and Tigertail‘s Kunjue Li. It will now be released in domestic theaters and on digital July 22.

The film was originally titled Simone, which is the name of the 2013 Eduardo Lalo novel on which it is based. Set in Puerto Rico, the plot centers on a mysterious, erotic and haunting love story of a writer-professor at a leading university and an aspiring student from the immigrant Chinese community.

Caterina Murino, Joanna Cassidy Braulio Castillo, Zoribel Fonalledas, Bruno Irizarry, Eli Cay, Mélanie Ramos and Aris Mejias also star in the pic, which was released in Puerto Rico last fall.

Peter Rawley and Frances Lausell are producers; executive producers are the Sifre Group, Morris Ruskin, Robert Katz and the Phoenix Fund in Puerto Rico.

Check out the trailer...

Exclusive: Comedies dominate Films Boutique’s line-up of market premieres at next week’s Marché du Film in Cannes.

The Berlin-based sales outfit will be presenting three comedies among its latest pickups.

These include Serbian writer-director Darko Lungulov’s Monument To Michael Jackson. It follows his award-winning feature Here And There and was pitched at various co-production events, including Sofia Meetings and Moscow Business Square; the film was co-produced by Macedonia’s Producer on the Move, Ognen Antov of Dream Factory Macedonia;T

The other two titles are Belgian film-maker Geoffrey Enthoven’s Halfway and Pascal Rabaté’s Patchwork Family, to be released in France on July 9 by Ad Vitam Distribution, as buyers-only screenings.

Halfway is the second film by Enthoven to be handled internationally by Films Boutique after the sales company had sold Come As You Are, a drama about three disabled youngsters going to Spain to get laid, to 42 territories...

'200 Cartas, a bilingual romantic comedy, written and directed by Bruno Irizarry The Rum Diary, Shut Up and Do It, which stars Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda and 1994 Miss Universe Dayanara Torres, held its world premiere at United Palace of Cultural Arts in Washington Heights last night. AMC Theatres in Times Square and the Bronx will screen the film starting tomorrow, June 14.

Chicago – In our latest adventure/drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 35 admit-two movie passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “The Rum Diary” starring Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi and Aaron Eckhart!

“The Rum Diary,” which is based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson about journalist Paul Kemp, also stars Richard Jenkins, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Amaury Nolasco, Marshall Bell, Bill Smitrovich, Julian Holloway, Bruno Irizarry, Enzo Cilenti, Aaron Lustig, Tisuby González and Natalia Rivera from writer and director Bruce Robinson. The film opens on Oct. 28, 2011.

To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “The Rum Diary” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This advance screening is on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011 at 7 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup and win can be found beneath the graphic below.

The movie poster...