"It was quite a surprise for me to discover that not long before the Cannes Film Festival the prestigious French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma (www.cahiersducinema.com) has included The Island in its list of the most anticipated films of 2011," Kalev said.

During the European Film Market in Berlin, French sales agent Le Pacte (www.le-pacte.com) agreed to purchase the world rights of the €1.5M budget Bulgarian-Swedish co-production with France's Laetitia Casta and Denmark's Thure Lindhardt in the leading roles. "The company's Chief Executive OfficerJean Labadie is a great movie buff and I am sure they will support the film," Kalev said.

The lead editors of The Island were Sweden's Åsa Mossberg and Denmark's Mikkel Nielsen, working in Copenhagen. Kalev, who worked on the Bulgarian scenes, will also be credited as editor. According to him, a key artistic activity during the three and a half editing period was carried out by his closest and longtime collaborator Stefav Piryov.

As in Kalev's acclaimed debut film, Eastern Plays (www.easternplays.com), Jean-Pall Wall from Sweden composed a score mixing original music and ready-made musical pieces. "The role of the music is more important this time, because of the strong emotional culminations in the story. Therefore I am happy that Tom Waits gave us the right to include one of his songs in the film. This was a great gesture on his part." Kalev concluded.