Focus Features acquired Brian and Charles, the Sundance breakout film directed by Jim Archer (who also directed the original short film). It stars David Earl, Chris Hayward, Louise Brealey, James Michie and Nina Sosanya. This marks Archer’s feature directorial debut after cutting his teeth shooting comedy sketches with friends before writing and directing several short films culminating in winning gold at the Young Director Awards in Cannes for the short film version of Brian and Charles.
Showtime acquired Nothing Compares directed by Kathryn Ferguson (Taking the Waters, Space to Be), the documentary charting Sinéad O’Connor’s phenomenal rise to worldwide fame and examines how she used her voice at the height of her stardom before her iconoclastic personality led to her exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on Sinéad’s prophetic words and deeds from 1987 to 1993, the film presents an authored, richly cinematic portrait of this fearless trailblazer through a contemporary feminist lens.
Following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Bleecker Street acquired Abi Damaris Corbin’s (The Suitcase) debut feature 892 starring John Boyega (Star Wars, Attack the Block), the late Michael Kenneth Williams in his final film role (“The Wire”, 12 Years a Slave), Nicole Beharie (Shame, 42), Connie Britton (Promising Young Woman, “Friday Night Lights”), Olivia Washington (Lee Daniels’ The Butler, The Little Things), Selenis Leyva (Spider-Man: Homecoming, “Orange Is the New Black”), London Covington (Hunters) and Jeffrey Donovan (“Burn Notice”, Changeling).
Inspired by David Blight’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” and executive produced by scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the HBO documentary Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches brings to life the words of our country’s most famous anti-slavery activist.
Here is the official trailer for Marvelous and the Black Hole, the coming-of-age comedy starring Rhea Perlman and Miya Cech, that premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Also starring in the film are Leonard Nam, Paulina Lulu, Kannon Omachi, Jae Suh Park and Jonathan Salvin.
A24 released the official trailer for After Yang, the critically-acclaimed sci-fi drama from visionary filmmaker Kogonada, starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, and Haley Lu Richardson.
IFC Films and Shudder acquired Resurrection, the psychological thriller written and directed by Andrew Semans (Nancy, Please), starring Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman and Michael Esper, that premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Sony Pictures Classics acquired Oliver Hermanus’ film Living, starring BAFTA® and Golden Globe® winner Bill Nighy which world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was met with strong reviews. Written by Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, Living is a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru.
President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground and Netflix acquired the documentary Descendant& which won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award: Creative Vision at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Watcher, the indie thriller from director Chloe Okuno (Shudder’s V/H/S/94, Slut) which made its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival has been acquired by IFC Midnight. Watcher stars Maika Monroe (It Follows, Greta), Karl Glusman (Love) and Burn Gorman (Torchwood). IFC Midnight will release the film in theaters and on VOD in 2022 with Shudder taking the first streaming window.
CNN Films and TIME Studios have teamed with Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy® Award-winning filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen (RBG, Julia, My Name is Pauli Murray) for Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down, a tender yet raw documentary about former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ remarkable perseverance following a horrific 2011 assassination attempt that left her with partial paralysis and the language impairment, aphasia. Home movies taken at the hospital, and current-day cinema verité filming, show Gifford’s painstaking and miraculous recovery from a gunshot to her head, and her path to becoming one of America’s most effective advocates for gun violence prevention. The filmmakers also capture a remarkable love story. Nine years after Giffords’ husband Mark Kelly gave up his job as a NASA astronaut to support his wife’s recovery, cameras follow an exuberant Gabrielle Giffords on the 2020 campaign trail supporting Kelly’s successful run for the U.S. Senate for Arizona. Production of Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down is near completion.
