montreal: Following TF1 International's success in selling Lea Pool's critically acclaimed coming-of-age story Emporte-moi in more than 20 countries, and an unprecedented 30 invitations to film festivals around the world, the film is getting a limited but prestigious theatrical release in the u.s. by distrib Merchant Ivory Distribution.

In u.s. reviews, Newsday wrote, "The genre is always worth returning to when a film is as freshly minted and vividly detailed as Set Me Free [Emporte-moi]." The New York Times described lead Karine Vanasse's character as "a 13-year-old girl adrift in a sea of powerful emotions...captivating, wrenching."

The film opened at the Quad Cinema in New York last month and was bicycled to Austin, Texas, May, 5 and Chicago and Miami, May 12. It opens in three theatres in Los Angeles on May 26, followed by a date in Philadelphia, June 2.

Emporte-moi was coproduced with France and Switzerland by Lorraine Richard of Montreal's Cite-Amerique. Pool's next project, also from Cite-Amerique, is the Canadian Television Fund-accepted feature film Lost and Delirious (a.k.a. The Wives of Bath).