HBO Bags Project Nim

NEW YORK: HBO has picked up all U.S. rights, covering broadcast, video and theatrical, for Project Nim, a documentary from the filmmaking team behind the Oscar-winning story Man on Wire.

Project Nim is the opening night film of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. The doc centers on Nim, the chimpanzee who in the ’70s become the focus of a landmark experiment to show whether an ape could learn to communicate with language if it was raised and nurtured like a human child. Project Nim is from producer Simon Chinn and director James Marsh.

HBO will be looking for U.S. theatrical and DVD distribution at Sundance, working with Submarine and Icon Entertainment International on the negotiations. HBO Documentary Films, BBC Films and the UK Film Council present a Red Box Films Production in association with Passion Pictures.