Sundance Film Festival records largest ever audience with virtual edition

HanWay Films and Cinetic have boarded Berlin Film Festival entry Ted K for international and North American sales, respectively. The companies have also released a first look image.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMagnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to “Censor,” which had its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival opening the Midnight Section, and will also be part of the Berlinale Panorama section in March.

Theo Anthony’s documentary All Light, Everywhere, which took home the Special Jury Prize for Non-Fiction Experimentation at the Sundance Film Festival, has been picked by NEON’s boutique division SUPER LTD. The distributor has taken the pic’s North American rights.

EXCLUSIVE: In a deal north of $2 million, Annapurna Pictures has acquired North American rights to On The Count of Three, the 2021 Sundance buzz title that marks the directorial debut of standup comedian Jerrod Carmichael.  Pic is expected to be released through Annapurna’s distribution pact with MGM’s Orion Pictures.

Frank Moreno, who was known for screening films at Cannes for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to purchase and distribute in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, died Wednesday in Florida. He was 82 and died after a brief battle with cancer, according to his daughter.

Jordan Moreau Despite taking place virtually and over a shorter duration, the 2021 Sundance Film Festival nabbed its largest audience ever this year, the Sundance Institute announced Monday.The 2021 festival took place from Jan. 28-Feb.

Park City, Utah may not have been flooded with out-of-towners this year for the Sundance Film Festival due to the pandemic, however, the annual prestige film event can celebrate that its online edition and 20 city theatrical extension drew a total audience that was 2.7 times larger than the typical 11-day Utah edition. This year’s Sundance ran from Thursday, Jan. 28 through Wednesday, Feb. 3.

EXCLUSIVE: Greenwich Entertainment has secured the North American distribution rights to Us Kids, the Kim A. Snyder-directed documentary, which chronicles the March For Our Lives student-led movement that was sparked by the plague of gun violence ravaging their schools. It premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and will be released in theaters and on digital platforms on April 9, shortly after the three-year anniversary of March For Our Lives.

Netflix has acquired the worldwide rights to splashy Sundance title Passing, the directorial debut ofRebecca Hall that stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. Sources peg the deal as being north of $15 million.

What does dismantling the American carceral state look like? How can meaningful and radical police reform actually be enacted? After years of tireless work by activists, acting upon decades of injustice against the poor and People of Color, these issues of now part of mainstream political platforms.

The evocative closing shot in Cusp — a documentary whose aesthetic beauty counterpoints the raw experiences mostly shrugged off by its unguarded subjects — shows three young women at a local swimming hole as one takes a flying leap off the rocks high above the water. The image conjures associations with countless American coming-of-age stories, incisively capturing the exhilaration and fear of having a whole life ahead of you.

Curious is the current emphasis on women’s trauma in American genre film—the way it’s discussed online, marketed, singled out in the headlines—as if trauma were not already deeply embedded in the historical fabric of horror movies. Of course, in a time when more women filmmakers than ever are being given the opportunity to tell their stories, the rise of feminist horror should come as no surprise, especially given the #MeToo phenomenon and efforts to destigmatize mental illness.

You don't find subjects much more disarming than Rita Moreno, whose seven-decade career on stage and screen is described in Mariem Pérez Riera's celebratory documentary as both the essence of the American Dream and the tenacious attainment of it despite dispiriting obstacles. "You must never really believe anything about your fame and all that kind of bullshit," says Moreno with characteristic unfiltered charm.

UPDATED with latest: The Santa Barbara Film Festival on Tuesday unveiled the recipients of its Virtuosos Award, given annually to a group recognizing their noteworthy performances in film. The honors will be bestowed Saturday, April 3.

13-year-old Sammy Ko (Miya Cech) is a problem child. Prone to skipping class, smoking cigarettes, and mouthing off to her teachers, she’s the opposite of the meek model student Hollywood typically imagines when writing young Asian-American characters.

EXCLUSIVE: Sundance Film Festival comedy Together Together is heading to Canada via LevelFILM, which has struck a deal with the film’s North American distributor Bleecker Street.

Alice Glass If the Sundance Film Festival loves a success story, the fest is likely to fall head over heels for director Kate Tsang.Her coming-of-age adventure “Marvelous and the Black Hole,” which premieres Jan.

Neon has picked up Jamila Wignot’s documentary Ailey, about dance and choreography legend Alvin Ailey, after its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The deal is Neon's second at Sundance after it nabbed the North American rights to Flee, an animated doc from Jonas Poher Rasmussen that counts Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as executive producers.