EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution has acquired North American rights to The Birthday Party, from director Miguel Angel Jimenez and adapted from Panos Karnezis’s novel of the same name.

Starring are Willem Dafoe, Vic Carmen Sonne, Joe Cole, Emma Suárez, Carlos Cuevas and Christos Stergioglou.

The film originally premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, and Quiver will release on June 5, 2026. Judah Klatzker negotiated the deal on behalf of Quiver, with Krisztina Laszlo from Bankside Films and Ioanna Stais from Heretic.

The film is set in the late 1970s somewhere in the Mediterranean, where Marcos Timoleon, an Aristotle Onassis-like tycoon, is throwing a lavish, extravagant birthday party for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, on his exclusive private island. According to the synopsis, “the party is a perfect excuse for various people in his life to approach him with their own agendas. But Marcos, who is used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him at whatever cost, is also secretly plotting a big decision on his daughter’s behalf. Sofia, however, has come to share some important news of her own. As guests start pouring in and night falls, the party grows rowdier and more decadent, while the inevitable clash between Marcos and Sofia reaches a climax.”

A Greek, Spanish, Dutch, and UK co-production, The Birthday Party was shot entirely in Greece, with locations in Corfu and Athens. The film was financed with support from the Greek Film Centre, ICEC, the Netherlands Film Fund, and the BFI’s Global Screen Fund. Additional backing came from Hellenic Film & Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece, ERT, Kalamata Films, Eolo Film Productions, Hopeless Romantic and Frontstage.

Executive producers on the project include Ginevra Bulgari, Alexandra Daskalopoulou, Ivan Samokhvalov, Ioanna Stais, Talal Abu Ghazaleh, Mohamed Hefzy, Lee Broda, Alexander Tsekalo, Shane West, Richie Walls, Jeff Rice, Claudia Romero, Gabriel Kaplan, Bruno Lowagie, Ingeborg Willaert, Martien Uyttendaele, Dirk De Lille, Edgar Daarnhouwer, Olivier Mortagne and Dries Phlypo.