The comedy DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, winner of the U. S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, have been acquired by Lionsgate and Roadside Attraction for release in the US. Written and directed by newcomer Justin Simien, and starring Tyler James Williams (“Everybody Hates Chris”), Tessa Thompson (“Veronica Mars”), Teyonah Parris (“Mad Men”), and Brandon P Bell (“Hollywood Heights”), the film follows four black students at a fictional Ivy League college, where a riot breaks out over a popular “African American-themed” party thrown by a white fraternity.

At prestigious Winchester University, biracial student Samantha White begins her radio show, “Dear White People, the amount of black friends required not to seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, your weed man, Tyrone, doesn’t count.”

Sam becomes president of the all-black residential hall Parker/Armstrong, whose existence is facing extinction in the name of diversification. TV reality show Black Face/White Placesmells gold in Sam’s story and decides to follow it, rejecting the proposal of fellow black student Coco Conners, who pitched her show Doing Time at an Ivy League. The clamor over Sam’s rise also becomes a career-defining opportunity for black misfit Lionel Higgins when he is asked to join the school’s lily-white newspaper staff to cover the controversy, even though he secretly knows little about black culture. Sundance Film Festival.