The winners of the Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Awards for 2010 were announced over the weekend and Tom Hooper won the DGA’s Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for The King’s Speech. The DGA’s Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film has traditionally served as a near-perfect barometer for the Academy Award for Best Director. Only six times since the DGA Award’s inception in 1948 has the winner not gone on […]
The Jury, Audience, NEXT! and other special award-winners of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival were announced last night at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to How to Die in Oregon, directed by Peter D. Richardson. In 1994 Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. How to Die in Oregon gently enters the lives of terminally ill Oregonians to illuminate the power of death with dignity. The Grand […]
In their first 2011 Sundance Film Festival acquisition, Focus Features has picked up worldwide rights to writer-director Dee Rees’ ‘Pariah.’ Pariah screened in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category and featured a cast that includes Adepero Oduye, Pernell Walker, Kim Wayans, Charles Parnell, and Aasha Davis. At the club, the music thumps, go-go dancers twirl, shorties gyrate on the dance floor while studs play it cool, and adorably naive 17-year-old Alike takes in the scene with […]
In their third pick-up of Sundance 2011, Roadside Attractions has acquired all North American rights to Miranda July’s second feature THE FUTURE. ‘The Future premiered at 2011 Sundance Film Festival and features a cast including Hamish Linklater, Miranda July, David Warshofsky, Isabella Acres, and Joe Putterlik. In the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her Camera d’Or winning debut, internationally acclaimed artist and author Miranda July writes, directs and stars alongside Hamish Linklater in the story of […]
New Video announced that the Company has acquired THE FLAW , a new documentary directed by British filmmaker David Sington (In the Shadow of the Moon) which made its U.S. premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and will be released under New Video’s Docurama Films brand later this year. The film’s title was inspired by former U.S. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s acknowledgment that he’d found a flaw in his model of how the world […]
Sony Pictures Classics announced that they have acquired the rights in North America, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand to Take Shelter. The film is written and directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories) and stars Academy Award® nominee Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon and Kathy Baker. The film is in dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Take Shelter is produced by Tyler Davidson under his Strange Matter Films banner, and Sophia […]
Lionsgate has reportedly closed the deal for North American rights on Lee Tamahori’s thriller ‘The Devil’s Double’ where premiered at 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The film centers on Dominic Cooper’s breakout role as Uday Hussein and his body double Latif Yahia. The cast also includes Ludivine Sagnier, Mimoun Oaissa, Raad Rawi, and Philip Quast Based on actual events, The Devil’s Double recounts the remarkable tale of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi army lieutenant who was summoned […]
IFC Films announced from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival that the company is acquiring North American rights to director David Mackenzie’s romantic thriller PERFECT SENSE, which had its world premiere in the Premieres section this week. Directed by Sundance alum Mackenzie (who was at the festival in 2009 with Spread), with a screenplay by Kim Fupz Aakeson, the film reunites Mackenzie with star Ewan McGregor (who he directed in the critically acclaimed Young Adam). The […]
IFC Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) announced from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival that the companies are partnering to acquire North American rights to George Ratliff’s ‘Salvation Boulevard’, which premiered this week in the festival’s Premieres section. The film, with a screenplay by Ratliff (whose previous films include Hell House and Joshua) and Doug Max Stone, based on the novel by Larry Beinhart, stars Pierce Brosnan, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Greg Kinnear, Jim […]
The documentary ‘These Amazing Shadows’ about The National Film Registry, was picked up by IFC under their new banner, “Sundance Selects.” IFC will make These Amazing Shadows available via VOD beginning January 22 (the date of the World Premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival) for 30 days. It will be available in approximately 40 million homes on most major cable systems including Bright House, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, and Time Warner Cable. After the 30 […]
Motion Film Group, Inc., a newly formed independent film venture from entertainment financier Fotis Georgiadis, has acquired the worldwide sales and distribution rights to writer/director Rashaad Ernesto Green’s debut feature Gun Hill Road, which premiered to a sold-out crowd and standing ovation at Sundance on Monday, January 24 in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. The coming-of-age drama set in The Bronx stars Esai Morales (“Caprica,” “NYPD Blue”), Judy Reyes (“Scrubs”), and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Cedar Rapids, […]
The 2011 Sundance Film Festival announced the jury prizes in shorts filmmaking and gave honorable mentions based on outstanding achievement and merit. The 2011 Short Film jurors are Barry Jenkins (director, writer, Medicine for Melancholy); Kim Morgan (Film and Culture writer, Sunset Gun, The Hitlist) and Sara Bernstein (Vice president, HBO Documentary films; supervising producer, Baghdad ER, White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking was awarded […]