Sundance Horror Film ‘Watcher’ Acquired By IFC Midnight, Shudder

Jon Burlingame editorMore than two years after completing his ninth “Star Wars” movie, composer John Williams is returning to the Jedi fold with a theme for “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Variety has learned.Williams has written the musical signature for the continuing adventures of the character played by Ewan McGregor, airing on Disney Plus beginning May 25. He recorded last week with a Los Angeles orchestra under tight security, sources say.It is a coup for both Lucasfilm and Disney, considering the five-time Oscar winner rarely composes for television.

Angelique Jackson Filmmakers Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Aftershock” has been acquired by Disney’s Onyx Collective and ABC News.News of the joint acquisition comes after the feature won the U.S. Documentary special jury award for impact for change at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where it made its debut as an official selection last month.

Naman Ramachandran Protagonist Pictures has closed multiple deals for several key territories on Sundance selection and Berlin Film Festival competition title “Call Jane.”Territories sold include DCM for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Umbrella Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, Mis.label for Scandinavia, Eagle for Italy, Shaw for Singapore and Empire for South Africa.Directed by Phyllis Nagy, the Oscar nominated writer of “Carol,” the film stars Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara and Chris Messina. The film follows Joy (Banks), a traditional 1960s housewife who unexpectedly falls pregnant and finds the Janes, an underground abortion movement led by Virginia (Weaver).

IFC Midnight has taken North American rights to Magdalena Lauritsch’s sci-fi disaster movie, Rubikon. A theatrical and PVOD date will be set for this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid a streaming-spurred frenzy for music catalog rights, Multimedia Music has acquired film and TV scores from nine-time Oscar nominee James Newton Howard.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaIFC Midnight and Shudder have closed a multi-territory deal for “She Will,” a psychological horror directed by artist and filmmaker Charlotte Colbert.The film is a gothic fairy tale about Veronica Ghent who after a double mastectomy, goes to a healing retreat in rural Scotland with her young nurse Desi. There, she discovers that the process of such surgery opens up questions about her very existence, leading her to start to question and confront past traumas.

Jennifer Lopez, 52, wowed on Feb. 4 when she made an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in an eye-catching set of outfits. The singer performed her new song “Marry Me”, from the new film Marry Me, with Maluma, and wore a flattering white bikini top under a matching cropped blazer and a long skirt. Before she sang, she also wore a long bright red dress with spaghetti straps as she happily chatted with the show’s host, Jimmy Fallon.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorPicture Tree Intl. has acquired Iranian genre crossover feature “Without Her,” and will introduce the film to buyers during the upcoming European Film Market at its Marriot Hotel located office in Berlin.

IFC Films and Shudder have acquired the North American rights to “Resurrection,” a psychological thriller starring Rebecca Hall that made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this week. Andrew Semans wrote and directed the film that also stars Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman and Michael Esper and that generated buzz at Sundance for its shocking and terrifying themes involving abusive relationships blended with more naturalistic horror elements in the French grand guignol legacy.

Filmmaker Jamie Dack is no stranger to film festivals. Her short film about teenage malaise in suburban Southern California “Palm Trees and Power Lines” premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival as a Cinéfondatio selection.

“We grew up in Atlanta and in the church. Like in the height of Southern Baptist megachurches.

If two people who lack a common language want to communicate, they’ll find a way to communicate. The characters in “blood,” the first new film from Bradley Rust Gray in a decade, don’t exactly lack a common language, but coltish English and crummy Japanese necessitate auxiliary tools for communication, such as food, dance, music, flowers, and art.

“Have you ever felt vertigo looking into the sky?” Nadeem Shahzad asks over voiceover roughly fifteen minutes into “All That Breathes.” The accompanying shot looks straight up into a sunny yet smog-streaked sky as a swirl of black kites swoops and careens overhead. The birds are numerous, too many to count, but their movements are mesmerizing.

Hiding underwater to escape her vicious aggressors, a rush of terror washes over Sara (Laura Galán), a large-bodied teenager target of incessant insults, and worse, about her weight. The callousness of the bullying perpetrated against her one summery afternoon won’t go unpunished but will place the victim in a conundrum fluctuating between guilt and a warranted desire for retribution.

As you know, the in person festival was canceled due to rising concerns of the omicron variant of Covid-19 and it has moved to an online screening format for press and attendees.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival obviously has so much to offer. Big premieres from indie auteurs, world cinema, documentaries, films for kids, and movies that are receiving so much acclaim right now, you’ll be hearing more from them later in the year upon regular theatrical release.

Bookended by a near-identical juxtaposition of sound and fury, directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s “Meet Me in the Bathroom” starts and ends like a messy, wannabe Jules Dassin cityscape film seen through a grunge filter. “Manhattan crowds with their turbulent musical chorus, Manhattan faces, and eyes, forever for me,” our narrator reads as we see riotous anger take to the streets.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterSundance Film Festival has revealed a mystery movie on its 2022 lineup.“Navalny,” a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been a late addition to the festival’s agenda. The film will debut on Jan. 25 at 6 p.m.

“I’d rather have one person dance in my car than have 100 people with the song on in the background” late-night radio DJ, Naz (Naz Kawakami), tells his friend. The young man hosts a show called “Night Drive,” on 90.1 FM Honolulu, “the show that makes you feel cool when you’re driving at night, the show where you actually are as you speed down the freeway going about your misdeeds.” Beginning production in November 2020 as a sort of documentary/fiction hybrid, native Hawaiian filmmaker Alika Tengan’s “Every Day In Kaimukī,” is an admirable and well-intended debut, though it’s far more successful in its vibe than it is in establishing an artistic voice with command over narrative.

As you’ve hopefully heard by now, and read our review, the Sundance film, “Something In The Dirt” is a big hit. From filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who I like to describe as DIY versions of Christopher Nolan—that is to say ambitious, cerebral, complex sci-fi, horror, and genre films, but done on a lo-fi scale—“Something In The Dirt” is a swirl of all their previous heady, high-concept ideas, but with a big dose of humor and a deep look at the world of phenomenon, conspiracy theories and even pareidolia or apophenia (essentially the phenomenon of seeing patterns, consistencies and correlations of things that just aren’t there).