Sundance buyers ensure screenings for indie projects
PARK CITY, Utah — Among the filmmakers, actors and cinephiles at this year’s Sundance Film Festival were studio reps and other distributors looking for the next big thing.
The 10-day festival, which wrapped up Sunday, showcased movies made outside the Hollywood studio system. Financed independently, these films often offer storytellers more freedom, but they also may be difficult to see outside of Park City unless a studio, cable channel or streaming service signs on to bring them to the masses.
Here are some of the dramas and documentaries that were picked up by distributors large and small, meaning they will soon be available on a screen near you:
• The Bronze, the story of a former gymnast (Melissa Rauch of The Big Bang Theory) still riding the glory of her old victories that premiered on the opening night of the festival, will be released in theatres by Relativity.
• Brooklyn, written by Nick Hornby and directed by John Crowley, stars Saoirse Ronan as an Irish immigrant making a new life for herself in New York in the 1950s. Fox Searchlight will release the film later this year in the U.S. and some international territories.
• City of Gold, Laura Gabbert’s documentary about Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold, was picked up by Sundance Selects.
• The Diary of a Teenage Girl, writer-director Marielle Heller’s debut about a 15-year-old girl sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend, stars Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgard and will be distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics.
• Dreamcatcher, a documentary about Chicago’s Dreamcatcher Foundation and its work to end human trafficking, was picked up by Showtime.
• Dope, writer-director Rick Famuyiwa’s crowdpleasing coming-of-age story featuring a cast of newcomers (who perform punk-rock songs written by Pharrell Williams), found distribution with Open Road Films.
• The End of the Tour, which tells the story of a five-day interview between a Rolling Stone magazine reporter and author David Foster Wallace in 1996, will be distributed in the U.S. by A24.
• Grandma, starring Lily Tomlin as a curmudgeonly widow who finds her softer side when her granddaughter comes to her for help, was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics.