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Whether Brat Summer has ended or not, the Brat girls are continuing to stay booked and busy. For Chloë Sevigny, she will soon be starring in Ryan Murphy’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and she also just celebrated the premiere of Durga Chew-Bose’s “Bonjour Tristesse” at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The latter is an adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 coming-of-age novel, showcasing the complexities of relationships among women and how they can come to wield influence over one another’s fates.​ Sevigny tells us that the film is “very different” from the book.

“The book is very eternal,” she told IndieWire on the red carpet for the “Bonjour Tristesse” TIFF premiere. “So most of that Lily [McInerny] is having to play. It’s her responsibility, not mine. She’s playing the stakes [laughs]. But I think we capture the essence of the book and the essence of...

Jonathan Tucker sprang into action during a home intruder scare in his Los Angeles neighborhood, the actor’s representative confirmed to Variety. TMZ first reported the story. The incident occurred Sunday evening in L.A.’s Hancock Park neighborhood.

The “Kingdom” actor called police after seeing a suspicious man walking around his block and banging on front doors. When he later saw that one of his neighbors’ front doors was wide open, he ran over to the home to check if the neighbors were in danger.

A mother and her daughter, plus another child, were inside the home at the time and Tucker led them to safety outside until police arrived on the scene. According to TMZ, law enforcement sources placed the disruptor in a 5150 hold, meaning the intruder was experiencing a mental health incident.

Tucker is an actor whose best known for his various television appearances over the years,...

Back at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Celine Song’s debut feature, “Past Lives,” premiered to rave reviews and early speculation about its awards chances. That turned out to be prescient. One year later, “Past Lives” is a 2024 Oscars Best Picture nominee, while Song is a nominee for Best Original Screenplay. So with the 2024 Sundance Film Festival at its end, what better time than now to speculate about what next year’s “Past Lives” will be? Whether anything on 2024’s Sundance roster can scale those heights is up for debate, but plenty of promising titles could compete for acting and screenplay prizes. The documentary lineup was robust this year, which makes sense: Six of the last 10 Best Documentary Feature Film winners got their start at Sundance.

Below is a sample of Sundance highlights that could be award contenders this time next year.

Narrative features

“Between the Temples”: It’s hard to fathom,...

As teenagers go — and let us allow for some hormonal leeway here — 17-year-old Sam is what most would call a good one: smart, thoughtful, grounded, self-sufficient but not averse to advice, the kind of kid that parents can’t help bragging about, as their friends wish their own nightmare offspring were a little more like her. But such a reputation has its downside, as elders take the teen’s compliance and good humor for granted, and expect undue allowances for their own irresponsibilities. Writer-director India Donaldson probes that awkward reversal of roles with delicacy and care in her debut feature “Good One,” monitoring the white lies and red flags that emerge over the course of a father-daughter camping weekend in upstate New York.

Premiering in the U.S. Dramatic competition at this year’s Sundance festival, “Good One” is modest but assuredly perceptive independent filmmaking that makes no grand claims...

India Donaldson picked up the Polish Film Institute Award for her upcoming feature “Good One” at the American Film Festival in Wrocław, coming with a $50,000 cash prize for post-production in Poland.

“It’s an affirmation of how we have been working and what we have been working towards,” Los Angeles-based Donaldson told Variety after the ceremony.

“Good One” – presented during Aff’s industry event U.S. in Progress and set to be finished in January 2024 – sees 17-year-old Sam heading on a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills with her father and his oldest friend.

“It’s a very personal story, although I wouldn’t say it’s autobiographical,” said Donaldson, who wrote the film during the pandemic.

“I was living at home for the first time since I was a teenager. With my father, my stepmother and my two teenage half-siblings, who were at high-school at the time. For the most part,...

Black Bear’s management arm has signed award-winning Quebec director Sophie Dupuis for representation. Most recently, Dupuis’ third picture, “Solo,” premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the award for best Canadian film. The film, which was written and directed by Dupuis, stars fellow Black Bear client Théodore Pellerin. It is set in Montreal’s drag queen scene.

Critics embraced the film with SlashFilm calling it “a vibrant portrait of queer nightlife” and the Toronto Star praising the work as a “dexterous film that combines bold images with the quiet beat of a heart torn asunder two ways.”

Dupuis’ previous work, which also showcases her impactful storytelling and her focus on human complexity, has been widely lauded. Her feature film debut, the crime drama “Family First,” earned four Canadian Screen Awards. It was selected as Canada’s submission for best foreign language film at the 2018 Academy Awards.

Exclusive: Black Bear, the production, management and financing company founded by Teddy Schwarzman, on Thursday announced its signing of Simona Tabasco, one of the breakout Italian stars of The White Lotus‘ second season.

The news follows the firm’s introduction to Tabasco as the producer of Immaculate, a forthcoming psychological horror film in which she stars opposite fellow White Lotus alum Sydney Sweeney.

In the Sicily-set second installment of Mike White’s HBO satire The White Lotus, examining the dynamics between employees and guests at luxury hotels around the world, Tabasco starred alongside Adam Dimarco, Michael Imperioli, Beatrice Grannò, Theo James and more. The 10x Emmy-winning series had her playing the role of Lucia Greco, a prostitute enjoying the high life alongside aspiring chanteuse Mia (Grannò), as she builds her business on the grounds of The White Lotus Sicily. For her performance, the actress was recognized with an Emmy nom...

“Palm Trees and Power Lines,” the story of a teenage girl who is groomed by a man twice her age, received nearly universal acclaim when it debuted at Sundance in 2022, going on to win an award for Jamie Dack’s direction.

And yet, despite all the good reviews and honors, it took months for the film to find a distributor. The reason, Dack says, is many film companies didn’t want to touch a movie that tackles such a controversial subject.

“People were scared,” says Dack. “There were many companies that wanted to take meetings with me and that told me they wanted to work with me on my next project. They were blunt. They said, ‘we love this film, but we just can’t distribute it.'”

One company even made Dack an offer, but suggested that she should cut a pivotal scene involving her central character’s fateful...

Lea feels lost. It is the summer before her senior year of high school, and the 17-year-old’s days are spent watching online makeup tutorials and reality TV, playing games on her phone, and lounging under the Southern California sun. Her father walked out years ago, and her boozy mother (Gretchen Mol) is needy when she’s single and distant when she’s not. She can’t relate to her teenage friends, who seem in thrall to emotionally stunted neighborhood boys their own age, laughing at their puerile jokes and observations,...

The 38th Film Independent Spirit Awards, hosted by Hasan Minhaj, took place on Saturday, live from the beach in Santa Monica, California. The annual awards ceremony was live-streamed on IMDb’s YouTube page, plus additional social platforms, including Film Independent’s YouTube channel.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” led this year’s nominations with a total of eight and swept up seven awards. Following close behind was Cate Blanchett’s “Tár” with seven nods and “Aftersun” with five. Meanwhile, “The Bear” topped the television categories.

Read More: Before Oscars, ‘Everything Everywhere’ Sweeps Spirit Awards

The 2023 Spirit Awards marks the show’s first time highlighting gender-neutral categories. In other words, Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh were up against Paul Mescal for lead performance. This year’s recipient of the Robert Altman award went to “Women Talking”, in which the award was given to the film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast.

‘Aftersun’ wins Best First Feature, ‘Joyland’ Best International Film.

A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once has dominated the 2023 Spirit Awards, claiming seven of the eight awards it was nominated for including film, director for the Daniels, and lead and supporting performance for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, respectively.

As awards season nears its climax, the madcap multiverse adventure heads into next weekend’s Oscars as the clear frontrunner for major honours after a triumphant Saturday evening under the traditional Film Independent tent on the beach in Santa Monica.

This follows major wins at three of the four US...

The blue carpet has been rolled up, and now we know who are the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards winners. The list of nominees recognized the best among films made for under $30 million in 2023 — that’s an increase from the previous budget cap, in recognition of ever-increasing production costs.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” earned pretty much a clean sweep: winning all seven of the categories in which it was nominated, including Best Feature, and seven of its eight nominees winning overall — Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis were competing against each other in one category, Supporting Performance, with the former winning.

Yes, the 38th edition of the awards put on by Film Independent have made a change previously adopted by the Gotham Awards: to have gender-neutral performance categories. That means Cate Blanchett was not just competing against Michelle Yeoh for Best Lead Performance (who ultimately won), but also Paul Mescal...

Ke Huy Quan won the best supporting performance award at the Independent Spirit Awards for his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

“Everyone on set, especially our amazing crew took such great care of each other,” Quan said in his acceptance speech. “We’ve never felt like we worked for anybody, and this is to the credit of the Daniels and our producer Jonathan Wang.”

He continued, “They made it a point to make sure that everyone feels as equally important. We were all there for one common reason and common goal and it was to bring something special up to the big screen.”

Backstage, Quan told reporters that after doing the Goonies and Indiana Jones as a child actor, he felt good to be making movies, and then it went “very quickly downhill from there.”

“This time around, it’s really special because I feel like a kid again,...

The 2023 Independent Spirit Awards were dominated by the Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which led all films this year with eight nominations and a won a total of seven prizes, including best feature. Close behind were Todd Field’s “Tár” with seven noms (it won for best cinematography) and Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” with five (it won for best first feature). All three movies picked up Oscar nominations this year, with “Everything Everywhere” also leading the Academy Awards pack with a total of 11 nominations.

While last year’s Spirit Award winner for best feature, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” did not go on to land an Oscar nomination in the same category, the 2021 winner, Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” repeated at the Oscars and took home the best picture prize.

This year’s Spirit Award nominees were highlighted by gender neutral categories, meaning Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh faced off...

Indie Spirit Award nomination leader “Everything Everywhere All At Once” has solidified its Oscar frontrunner status, winning seven awards on Saturday afternoon in Santa Monica, including Best Feature, Best Lead Performance (Michelle Yeah), Best Supporting Performance (Ke Huy Quan), Best Director, Best Screenplay (each awarded to the directorial duo The Daniels), Best Film Editing, and Best Breakthrough Performance for Stephanie Hsu.

The film won in every single category it was nominated. Quan was competing alongside his costar Jamie Lee Curtis in the Best Supporting Performance race, giving the film a ceiling of seven wins despite its eight nominations. And seven mark the most wins ever for a single film at the Indie Spirit Awards. Barry Jenkins’s 2016 “Moonlight” was the previous record holder, with five competitive award wins, in addition to the honorary Robert Atman Award, recognizing a film’s ensemble cast.

This year, the Robert Altman Award went to “Women Talking,...

The 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards are being handed out Saturday, March 4, from Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, CA in a show hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj. Much as it paced the Oscar nominations, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” leads the way among all film nominees with eight Independent Spirit noms, including Best Feature and honors for director (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), lead performance (Michelle Yeoh), supporting performance (Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan) and breakthrough performance (Stephanie Hsu). Todd Field’s “TÁR” earned seven nominations, including director and screenplay (Field), lead performance (Cate Blanchett) and supporting (Nina Hoss). “Aftersun” scored five bids.

Scroll down to see the Indie Spirit Awards winners list live as it happens today. We’ve also included the complete roster of nominees in every category.

Besides “Everything Everywhere” and “TÁR,” the film competing for top feature are “Our Father, the Devil,” “”Bones and All” and “Women Talking.

There are no current Oscar nominees hitting streaming services this weekend. Everything that will be released on streaming before final voting closes on March 7 has already been released. So our list of awards contenders available to stream this week is light on certified contenders. All five of our picks last week were Oscar nominees; this week features a Cannes nominee from 2014. But they’re all still worth watching, especially our top pick, which is up for four Independent Spirit Awards.

The contender to watch this weekend: “Palm Trees and Power Lines”

Writer-director Jamie Dack’s searing coming-of-age drama comes to on-demand platforms just in time for the Independent Spirit Awards, where it’s nominated for Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Breakthrough Performance for star Lily McInerny, and Best Supporting Performance for Jonathan Tucker. The film follows Lea (McInerny), a directionless 17-year-old girl who gets romantically involved with Tom...

In Palm Trees and Power Lines, director Jamie Dack carefully sets up the factors that lead teenager Lea (newcomer Lily McInerny) into a relationship with Tom (Jonathan Tucker), a man twice her age. Her father is absent and her mother seems to only notice her when she’s in between boyfriends. There’s a disconnect between Lily and her friends at times. Then there’s old-fashioned boredom––idle hands are the devil’s playthings after all. Summer nights may consist of the drinking and hooking up one expects of teenagers, but suburban malaise casts a long shadow over the proceedings, creating the antithesis of a Linklater night out.

So like St. Augustine and his pears, Lea and her friends dine and dash one evening, not for seeming lack of funds but just because. It’s here that Tom first makes contact with her, via a quick wink as he walks past her booth.

The 2023 Independent Spirit Awards are being held on Saturday afternoon, March 4, streamed live on IMDb’s YouTube channel, as well as Film Independent’s YouTube and Twitter accounts. The event will be hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj, but who will win when prizes are handed out? Thousands of Gold Derby users have placed their bets here in our predictions center. Those predictions were combined to generate our official racetrack odds. Scroll down to see the odds below, with our projected winners highlighted in gold.

SEE2023 Gold Derby Film Awards ceremony: Watch 20 exciting acceptance speeches by Michelle Yeoh, Colin Farrell, Austin Butler …

The nominees for the Spirit Awards are chosen by committees of film industry insiders, including critics, programmers, producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors, and actors, past Spirit Award nominees and winners, and members of Film Independent’s board of directors. But winners are decided by Film Independent members at large.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)

It is a fascinating thing to watch someone’s history of protest and addiction collide and conspire to hold a pharmaceutical company accountable and expose its parent family as reprehensible. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles the renowned photographer and activist Nan Goldin and her fight through the AIDS and opioid crisis, but this is bigger than a biographical documentary. Through slideshows, interviews, and family videos, Poitras weaves a riveting, heartbreaking interconnected story of generational pain, its influence over the blurry boundaries between life and art. – Jake K-s.

Where to Stream: VOD

Close (Lukas Dhont)

Dhont’s sophomore feature offers no narrative or stylistic fireworks, but it captures feelings so fine and true they...

Jamie Dack’s Palm Trees and Power Lines is about losing a person. By the end, its 17-year-old heroine, Lea (played by a great Lily McInerny) seems lost to herself, unsure of who to be. It’s the summer before her senior year. Trouble starts with a chance encounter with an older man, Tom (Jonathan Tucker), who is twice Lea’s age but nevertheless takes an interest. This is merely how it starts. Palm Trees is a film about a young woman groomed, unsuspectingly, into sex work by a charming 34-year-old man.

While at least half of the month’s film-related discussion will, unfortunately, be consumed by the endless Oscar race chatter, we’re here to cut through the noise and highlight gems worth seeking out in March. From a superhero film actually worth a watch to a fascinating archival documentary to highlights from not only this year’s Sundance but the 2022 edition as well, check out my picks to see.

15. Rodeo (Lola Quivoron; March 17)

One of the breakouts of last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section and picked up a jury prize, was Lola Quivoron’s feature debut Rodeo. Starring Julie Ledru Kaïs, Yannis Lafki Ophélie, Antonia Buresi, Cody Schroeder, Louis Sotton, and Junior Correia, it follows a young woman who enters the underground world of dirt biking. Set for a NYC premiere at First Look, it’ll arrive later this month from Music Box Films.

While there aren’t many palm trees in sight, the stretch of endless power lines in Lea’s (Lily McInerny) surroundings mirror the nature of her repetitive existence. Her single mom (Gretchen Mol) entertains a string of terrible boyfriends in the pursuit of ever-evaporating companionship. Her immature friends spend their time ranking the hotness of people in their class when they aren’t lifelessly scrolling their Instagram feeds. As a 17-year-old, Lea’s sexual awakenings are either taken as a joke, as her friend fingers a cream-filled donut poking fun at urges, or rather un-involving. In one scene, she starts to gaze out the window while having unsatisfying sex in the backseat of a car with a fellow classmate. It’s a summer defined by boredom, waiting out the days until she can escape the life she was born into.

When a man twice her age, Tom (Jonathan Tucker), takes...

First-time feature filmmaker Jamie Dack is about to have a very big weekend. First up: Her “Palm Trees and Power Lines” hits theaters and VOD on Friday. By Saturday, the filmmaker and her cast and crew will reunite to celebrate four Indie Spirit nominations — including Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Breakthrough Performance (for star Lily McInerny), and Best Supporting Performance (for star Jonathan Tucker) — during the annual beachside awards ceremony.

It was worth the wait.

Inspired by her short film of the same name, Dack’s film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival (which went virtual after the plan to return to in-person festivities had to be scrapped at the last minute), where it competed for the top prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and Dack won the directing prize in the category.

But despite that Sundance win, strong critical buzz, and a robust continuing festival run,...

The director and star of Palm Trees and Power Lines talk about their unsettling drama that tells of the relationship between a teen and a man in his thirties

There were two things that hooked me when I first saw Palm Trees and Power Lines, an unnerving portrait of the grooming of a teenage girl, at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. First, that the film, which is finally getting limited and on-demand release this week in the US, was one of most evocative depictions of suburban adolescence that I’d seen – a languid summer of couch hangs and knobby knees, afternoon ice cream and sex jokes, a whole lot of lying around and talking about nothing. And second, that the portrayal of the relationship between 17-year-old Lea, played by the 22-year-old yet younger-looking Lily McInerny, and 34-year-old Tom, played by a convincingly thirtysomething Jonathan Tucker, was a remarkably tricky balancing act,...

Palm Trees and Power Lines Trailer — Jamie Dack‘s Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) movie trailer has been released by Momentum Pictures. The Palm Trees and Power Lines trailer stars Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker, Gretchen Mol, and Armani Jackson. Crew Jamie Dack and Audrey Findlay wrote the screenplay for Palm Trees and Power Lines. Poster Palm [...]

Continue reading: Palm Trees And Power Lines (2022) Movie Trailer: Lily McInerny swims in Dangerous Waters with Jonathan Tucker...

While this year’s Sundance Film Festival recently concluded, one of the most acclaimed films out of last year’s edition will now be arriving in just under a month. Jamie Dack’s feature debut Palm Trees and Power Lines, which picked up four Independent Spirit Award nominations, follows a teenager’s experience beginning a relationship with a man twice her age. Starring Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker and Gretchen Mol, the first trailer has now arrived ahead of a March 3 release from Momentum Pictures.

Here’s the full synopsis “Seventeen-year-old Lea (Lily McInerny) spends her summer break aimlessly tanning in her backyard with her best friend, tiptoeing around her needy mother, and getting stoned with a group of boys from school. This monotony is interrupted by a chance encounter with Tom (Jonathan Tucker), an older man who promises an alternative to Lea’s unsatisfying adolescent life. But as things progress between them,...

It’s crazy to think that boyish-looking Jonathan Tucker, known for roles in “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), “Hostage” (2005), “In the Valley of Elah” (2007), and “The Ruins” (2008), is now 40 years old. And beyond roles like “Charlie’s Angels” (2019), the perennially youthful-looking actor generally plays nice guys, introverts, and the like. But in “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” an acclaimed 2022 Sundance Film Festival title that’s finally coming out now, Tucker plays something much more chilling and disturbing.

Continue reading ‘Palm Trees and Power Lines’ Trailer: Jonathan Tucker Stars As A Predator In Jamie Dack’s Acclaimed Sundance Film at The Playlist.

Film Constellation handles international sales.

Momentum Pictures has acquired US and UK rights to Sundance winner and BFI London Film festival selection Palm Trees And Power Lines.

Jamie Dack directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Audrey Findlay about a disconnected teenage girl on summer break who falls into a relationship with a man more than twice her age. While she sees him as the solution to all her problems, his intentions are not what they seem.

Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker, and Gretchen Mol star. The producers are Leah Chen Baker and Jamie Dack.

Momentum plans a limited theatrical and...

A humdrum thriller that clumsily digs into themes of sexual and emotional trauma, Amy Redford’s sophomore feature “What Comes Around” follows Anna (Grace Van Dien), an archetypal perceptive teenage girl on the cusp of maturity. Because she’s the observant kind who yearns for big ideas and possibilities outside of her small suburban world, it’s no surprise that it isn’t a square teenage boy from her school that romantically sweeps Anna off her feet, but a man of nearly 30 years of age she’s met online.

He’s the creepily mysterious Eric, someone who ignites Anna’s all-consuming emotions, shares her love of Emily Dickinson and notices (at least on the surface) the complexities of this young girl who wants to cross over to adulthood fast. But when he shows up at Anna’s doorstep uninvited all too abruptly after traveling hundreds of miles, he rattles the disturbed Anna,...

Production, finance and sales company Film Constellation has boarded sales on the upcoming romantic thriller “Haunted Heart” by Academy Award winning director Fernando Trueba.

The film stars Academy Award nominee Matt Dillon (“The House That Jack Built”), Goya-nominated Aida Folch (“The Artist and the Model”), and Juan Pablo Urrego (“Memoria”). The English-language film is set to start shooting in Greece in September.

The film is set on a beautiful remote island in Greece, where young and spirited Alex joins the team of a boutique seaside restaurant as their new waitress. Despite her femme-fatale charm quickly winning the heart of the charismatic Enrico, she instead falls for the enigmatic restaurant manager Max, a reclusive American, who settled on the island decades ago.

As the seasons pass, sexual tensions rise, and tourists come and go, Enrico begins to unearth disturbing clues about Max’s dark and mysterious past. Blinded by her feelings,...

Exclusive: Fresh off multiple rave reviews last night, we can reveal that Altitude has secured UK and Ireland distribution rights to writer-director Georgia Oakley’s buzzy Venice, Toronto and London Film Festival-bound drama Blue Jean from London and Paris-based Film Constellation.

Starring rising Brit actress Rosy McEwen (Vesper), the debut film will premiere tomorrow [Saturday September 3] in the Venice Days competition, before playing at Toronto and then getting its UK premiere at the London Film Festival where it will compete for the Sutherland Award for Directorial Debut.

The feature is set against the backdrop of late 1980s England with Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government about to pass a law stigmatizing gays and lesbians. The climate forces Jean, a Pe teacher, to live a double life. As pressure mounts from all sides, the arrival of a new girl at school catalyses a crisis that will challenge Jean to her core. Earlier this week we debuted first footage.

Exclusive: Kristen Konvitz has joined UTA as an Agent in the Independent Film Group division. She will work from the agency’s Los Angeles headquarters, reporting to Partners Jim Meenaghan and Rena Ronson, who serve as Co-Heads of the Independent Film Group.

Konvitz comes to UTA from ICM, where she worked as an Agent in the Independent Film Group. She spent over five years at the agency prior to its acquisition by CAA, there working to structure and arrange financing, assemble and secure distribution for independent films.

Konvitz has brokered distribution deals on dozens of films coming out of such major festivals as Cannes, Sundance, TIFF and SXSW, among others. Her recent projects include Agnieszka Smoczynska’s Cannes Un Certain Regard entry The Silent Twins, SXSW Audience Award winner Pretty Problems, Sundance Best Director winner Palm Trees and Power Lines, and Spike Lee’s American Utopia. Additionally, she has negotiated...

Chicago – The 9th Chicago Critics Film Festival (Ccff) is on Day Five, and will feature two significant films from women directors … “Straighten Up and Fly Right” by Kristen Abate (with co-director Steven Tanenbaum) and “Palm Trees and Power Lines” by Jamie Back. The Fest continues through May 19th, click Ccff for schedule and ticket info.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

”Straighten Up and Fly Right” creates a space for a disabled character to seek a sense of herself, while breaking a cycle of loneliness and desperation within her own skin. Kristen Abate is also featured as Kristen, a young women with a permanent stoop (bent over) style of walking due to Ankylosing Spondylitis (As), a crippling arthritis. Isolated in her own world as a dog walker (naturally) she is given a hand up just as her self criticism and loathing is at its worse. Steven (Steven Tanenbaum), a fellow sufferer of As, allows Kristen to move into his apartment,...

Condor has picked up French rights to Saim Sadiq’s drama “Joyland” ahead of its world premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. The title, the first Pakistani film to be selected in Cannes, will vie for the Caméra d’Or.

Film Constellation is representing international sales rights. WME Independent is representing North American rights.

Sadiq’s debut feature centers on the extended patriarchal Ranas family, who yearn for the birth of another boy. Meanwhile, their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theater and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story slowly illuminates the entire Rana family’s desire for a sexual rebellion.

Condor’s slate also includes Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part I & II,” Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow,” Paul Schrader’s “The Card Counter,” Kogonada’s “After Yang,” and Sundance 2022 Grand Jury Prize winner “Utama” by Alejandro Loayza Grisi.

Condor’s Alexis Mas said:...

International production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation is launching sales at the Cannes Film Market on Sundance winner “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” starring Jonathan Tucker and introducing Lily McInery.

The feature debut of Jamie Dack, who expanded on her 2018 Cinéfondation short of the same title, “Palm Trees and Power Lines” follows 17-year-old Lea as she meets Tom, a charismatic man twice her age who promises an alternative to her unsatisfying adolescent life. Quickly falling for his charm, Lea sees him as the solution to all of her problems, but as Tom’s grip tightens, his intentions become distressingly clear.

The film premiered at this year’s Sundance, where it took home the award for best director in the U.S. Dramatic Competition.

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman reviewed the film positively, noting the “masterly kind of slow-motion horror staging” from Dack, and the breakout turn from McInerny, whose “acting...

Sffilm Festival, San Francisco’s premier celebration of film, has unveiled its 65th lineup for this year’s return to in-person festivities. The 2022 program features more than 130 from 56 countries, with 56 percent helmed by female or non-binary filmmakers and 52 percent directed by Bipoc filmmakers. The 2022 Festival will run April 21–May 1, with tickets on sale now at sffilm.org. Screenings will take place at venues across the Bay Area, including the storied Castro Theatre and Uc Berkeley’s Bampfa.

While the festival features a variety of world and North American premieres, it will also serve as a Bay Area launchpad for a number of festival favorites, like Sundance darling “Cha Cha Real Smooth” (which Apple TV+ will roll out later this year), John Boyega–starrer “892,” NatGeo volcanologist documentary “Fire of Love,” Terence Davies’ “Benediction,” Claire Denis’ “Both Sides of the Blade,” Venice Golden Lion winner “Happening,” Sundance Best Director winner...

Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Palm Trees and Power Lines Review — Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) Film Review from the 45th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Jamie Dack, starring Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker, Gretchen Mol, Armani Jackson, Auden Thornton, Kenny Johnston, Yvette Tucker, John [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Palm Trees And Power Lines: Blunt Direction Amounts to Brute Emotional Force [Sundance 2022]...

With nearly every feature film at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival reviewed, it’s time to wrap up the first major cinema event of the year. We already got the official jury and audience winners here, and now it’s time to highlight our favorites.

Our Sundance contributors have shared their top picks from the festival, also including a handful of shorts (with a more substantial shorts overview coming soon). Check out everything below and stay tuned to our site, and specifically Twitter, for acquisition and release date news on the below films in the coming months.

Mitchell Beaupre

1. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford)

2. After Yang (kogonada)

3. Speak No Evil (Christian Tafdrup)

4. God’s Country (Julian Higgins)

5. A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman)

6. Resurrection (Andrew Semans)

7. Nanny (Nikyatu Jusu)

8. Happening (Audrey Diwan)

9. Emergency (Carey Williams)

10. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde)

John Fink

1. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier...

Chicago – The 2022 Sundance Film Festival announced their Grand Jury Prizes on January 28th, and the top films were “Nanny” (U.S. Dramatic), “The Exiles” (U.S. Documentary), “Utama” (World Cinema Dramatic) and “All That Breathes” (World Cinema Documentary).

After nine days, 84 feature films and 59 Short Films, honors were also given for Audience Awards, Festival Favorite Award, Jury Awards for Directing, Screenwriting & Editing and Special Jury Awards.

The list of all award winners are below.

Grand Jury Prize

‘Nanny’

Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival

U.S. Dramatic: “Nanny” directed by Nikyatu Jusu

U.S. Documentary: “The Exiles,” directed by Ben Klein & Violet Columbus

World Cinema Dramatic:: “Utama” (Bolivia/Uraguay/France) directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi

World Cinema Documentary: “All That Breathes” (India/UK) directed by Shaunak Sen

Audience Awards

Cha Cha Real Smooth

Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival

U.S. Dramatic: “Cha Cha Real Smooth” directed by Cooper Raif

U.S.

Apple has Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic winner for second consecutive year.

Nanny and The Exiles have won the Sundance 2022 US grand jury prizes and Utama and All That Breathes corresponding world cinema honours while Navalny was voted the audience favourite as the festival announced winners on Friday (Jan 28).

Nikyatu Jusu’s supernatural tale of an undocumented Senegalese nanny working in the US claimed the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and The Exiles from Ben Klein and Violet Columbus earned the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary and follows documentarian Christine Choy and she reunites with exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Sundance 2022 has officially crowned its winners. On Friday, the Sundance Film Festival’s awards were announced on Twitter via @sundancefest. Juries and audience members alike weighed in to select winners across a variety of categories, out of 84 feature films and 59 short films.

The grand jury prizes went to Nikyatu Jusu‘s feature directorial debut “Nanny,” for the coveted U.S. Dramatic title, along with Christine Choy’s “The Exiles” for U.S. Documentary, Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” for World Cinema Documentary, and Alejando Loayza Grisi’s “Utama” for World Cinema Dramatic.

The Audience Awards were earned by U.S. documentary “Navalny” and Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” for U.S. Dramatic. “Navalny” also won the Festival Favorite Award.

Jusu is the second Black woman ever to win the Grand Jury Prize U.S. Dramatic, following Chinonye Chukwu in 2019 for “Clemency.”

“This year’s entire program has...

“Nanny” was the big winner at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, picking up the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in a virtual awards ceremony Friday.

Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” was also a winner, nabbing the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category, while “Navalny,” a late addition to the festival, won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award. The Sundance jury also recognized “The Exiles” in the documentary category and “Utama” in the World Cinematic category.

This year’s Best of the Fest announcement caps off the second year in a row in which the festival was forced to go virtual amid the pandemic.

Although the awards were announced virtually, the emotion was palpable when juror Chelsea Bernard announced that “Nanny” director and screenwriter Nikyatu Jusu had won for her harrowing story of an undocumented nanny working for a privileged couple in New York...

“Palm Trees and Power Lines,” an unnerving and deeply disturbing look at an older man who grooms a bored teenager, asks challenging questions about consent and predation.

As Tom, Jonathan Tucker, a veteran scene-stealer in “Kingdom” and “Westworld,” is a revelation, painting a picture of pure evil that is nonetheless charming and seductive. He appears on the scene as Lea (newcomer Lily McInerny) is feeling bored and disconnected from her single mother and friends and prays on that loneliness and dissatisfaction for sinister ends. “Palm Trees and Power Lines” marks co-writer and director Jamie Dack’s feature film debut and earned rave reviews when it debuted at this year’s Sundance with some critics praising it as one of the best films of the festival. Tucker is thrilled with the reception, but admitted to Variety that watching the finished film was one of the most challenging experiences of his professional life.

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. A graduate of NYU’s Mfa program, Dack’s films explore loneliness and insecurity. Partially inspired by a series of still photographs Dack took of her native Southern California, the feature “Palm Trees and Power Lines” is an adaptation of her earlier short, expanding and adding themes of vulnerability, grooming and exploitation.

Continue reading Jamie Dack Talks ‘Palm Trees And Power Lines,’ Filmmaking Inspirations & More [Sundance Interview] at The Playlist.

By Abe Friedtanzer

In film and television it’s very common to find a romance happening that probably shouldn’t be, with too wide an age gap that’s either just unappealing or actually illegal. That’s a central problem some have with Licorice Pizza. The Alliance of Women Film Journalists actually has a category in their awards titled “Most Egregious Age Difference Between Leading Man and Love Interest.” Palm Trees and Power Lines is the latest reminder that if something feels off, there’s probably good reason to raise alarm…...

Every so often, the movies like to argue with themselves by dropping two versions of the same story within spitting distance of one another: “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano,” “Deep Impact,” and “Armageddon.” The one-two punch of Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket” and Jamie Dack’s “Palm Trees and Power Lines” is, for clarity’s sake, nothing like dueling dumb-dumb disaster spectacles, but to consider Dack’s film without considering Baker’s is both impossible – everyone at Sundance is doing it– and frankly careless (but mostly impossible).

“Palm Trees and Power Lines,” an adaptation of Dack’s 2018 Cannes short of the same name, stars Lily McInerny as Lea, a detached, bored teenager living in what might be Florida – the state claiming the most palm trees in the country – but which, for Dack’s purposes, may as well be Anywhere, USA.

Continue reading ‘Palm Trees And Power Lines’ Review: The Dynamics Of...

Chicago – The 2022 Sundance Film Festival heads into Day Seven, and offers online events as well as films (see below). Like last year, the festival is virtual/online, meaning anyone/anywhere with a ticket or a pass (link) can indulge in the film offerings and events throughout the festival, which runs until January 30th.

One of the highlight offerings is free to anyone, with no need for extra tickets or credentials. Beyond Film programming offers something for everyone … with filmmaker chats, meet-ups and a daily talk show with Festival Director Tabitha Jackson. Festivals stars and directors participating include Emma Thompson, Dakota Johnson, Amy Poehler and Eva Longoria Bastón. Click on Beyond Film for the archive and what is upcoming.

Palm Trees and Power Lines

Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual event organized by the Sundance Institute – an organization founded by actor Robert Redford in 1980 – and...

A good filmmaker doesn’t just stage a scene. He or she creates a space. When that happens, we’re no longer just watching the characters — we’re drawn right into that space, until we’re almost floating in it, in sync with the characters’ identities and interactions, their minds and heartbeats. That’s the kind of meditative absorption that Jamie Dack, the director and co-writer of “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” creates.

The story she’s telling emerges from the chaos of today’s glumly hedonistic and squalid tech-addict youth culture. Lea (Lily McInerny), who’s 17, is smart and shy (because she’s honest about her own inwardness), a girl who’s not trying to act more knowing than she is. Finishing off the summer in her desultory anonymous hometown somewhere in the Southwest, she’s listless and mildly depressed, lurching through the weeks in a daze of sunbathing,...

Writer-director Jamie Dack has expanded her widely admired 2018 short film Palm Trees and Power Lines into a considerably more thorny and disturbing feature of the same title. Shot verité style on the most banal possible locations, the film, which is making its world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival, takes an unvarnished look at an environment that is arid both literally and figuratively, one in which young people seem to be given precious little guidance or structure by family or society. Dack doesn’t explicitly editorialize but makes acutely clear the vulnerability of adolescents left too much to their own devices at a formative age.

Written by Dack and Audrey Findlay, this is a story that could take place more or less anytime, anywhere, centering on teenagers who have nothing to do except lie around a pool, go to the mall or get into trouble,...