Big World Pictures has acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to Iair Said’s Most People Die on Sundays from sales agent Heretic. The existential comedy, Said’s feature debut, was an official selection in the ACID section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film is scheduled to be released in early 2025 after playing at festivals in the fall. Said previously directed the documentary “Flora’s Life Is No Picnic.”

Most People Die on Sundays is about David, a young middle-class Jewish man described as corpulent, homosexual and afraid of flying. He returns to Buenos Aires from Europe for his uncle’s funeral and learns that his mother has decided to turn off his father’s ventilator. The story shows David’s struggle with existential anxieties as he comes to terms with his new reality.

Said explained the making of the film: “When my father died, we had to pay $10,000 to bury him in a Jewish cemetery. It took us two and a half years to pay off the money. My father prepared us very emotionally for the day of his death. But neither he nor anyone else told us that his death would be so expensive.”

The director added: “In the middle class, there is no discussion of what it is worth to die for. What price do the living pay for the death of a loved one? That’s what my film is about: what happens when ‘normal’ people… die.”

“Most People Die on Sundays” will also be distributed in France by JHR Films and in Latin America and Spain by Star+ (Disney+) and A Contracorriente Films.

Big World Pictures, a non-profit distributor founded in 2013, focuses on bringing international cinema to U.S. and Canadian audiences. Their previous releases include films by directors such as Ulrich Seidl, Radu Jude, Mohammad Rasoulof, Tsai Ming-liang and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Athens-based boutique film studio Heretic currently has Locarno titles “New Dawn Fades” and “Eight Postcards From Utopia” by Radu Jude, as well as Cannes ACID selection “Kyuka Before Summer’s End” in its slate.