Sundance 2023: Netflix Nabs Buzzy Psychological Thriller “Fair Play”
Netflix has made its play.
The streamer has bought one of the buzziest films at this year’s Sundance, writer/director Chloe Domont’s psychological thriller Fair Play, for $20 million, Deadline reports. The film is already getting great reviews after its Sundance premiere, with Dumont’s debut film depicting the brutally cutthroat world of a New York investment firm. Netflix ultimately won the film’s rights after a bidding war with a few other competitors.
Sundance 2017: Line Producer Shea Kammer on Breaking Into the Industry
A line producer on a film is one of the most crucial jobs on the crew. Often the first person hired by the producer, a line producer's responsibilities are daunting, to say the least. We spoke to Shea Kammer, a line producer extraordinaire, about what the role requires. Kammer is heading to the Sundance Film Festival, where he has two films in competition; the Iraq war drama The Yellow Birds and the medical drama
Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation Sweeps Top Two Prizes at Sundance
Nate Parker is, officially now, your king of Sundance, 2016.
The festival's a wrap, and this past Saturday night, the awards for feature filmmaking were given, including the two biggest, The Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. As was evident from the standing ovation writer, director, producer and star Parker received before his The Birth of a Nation even played, he and his film were the odds on favorites to be the big winners once the festival ended—the jury didn't disappoint.
Sundance 2016: Review Roundup, Part III
We’re back with part III of our Sundance film review roundup. You can read parts I and II to catch up on all the films we've looked at thus far.
“Meet the She-Wolves of Wall Street,” writes Variety’s Guy Lodge about Meera Menon’s sophomore feature, Equity. Menon’s “refreshingly female-skewed financial thriller proves that the women of Wall Street can be just as cold-heartedly corrupt as the boys.”
Sundance 2016: Nate Parker’s Huge Night & More
We wrote yesterday about the rapturous response to Nate Parker’s Sundance-shaking Nat Turner biopic, The Birth of a Nation. Today, reports are flooding in that the whopping, festival record-setting $17.5 million offer the film got from Fox Searchlight was actually less than what Netflix was willing to part with.
THR reports that writer, director and star Parker, who had put $100,000 of his own money into the film to fly around the country in an attempt to find financiers (he eventually had a dozen investor groups,
Sundance 2016: A Roundup of Reviews, Part II
Let’s take a look at what the critics are saying about some of the films that have premiered at Sundance.
Nate Parker and Tony Espinosa in 'The Birth of a Nation.' Photo by Elliot Davis. Courtesy Sundance Film Festival.
Earlier today, we took a look at Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation,
Sundance 2016: A Film Review Roundup
Earlier we looked at some of the films that have premiered at Sundance that have found homes in a variety of studios, from IFC to Amazon. Now let's take a look at some of the films reviews coming out of the festival this year, perhaps gleaning what will be next on the bidding block.
Vulture's Bilge Ebiri has written that Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea,
Novel Approach: 5 Films Based on Books Premiering at Sundance
Who will break out big at Sundance this year? Which film, which director, which star will get the major viral boost from word of mouth or jury prize?
The 2014 iteration of the Park City, Utah, festival opens on January 22. As usual, there is an abundance of riches to consider beyond the big screen. There are the excellent panel discussions, for instance, which this year features a first-ever appearance by director George Lucas.
Sundance: Film Scholar Noah Isenberg on One of 1st Indie Filmmakers, Edgar G. Ulmer
Long considered as something of a guilty pleasure among filmmakers, critics, and fans, director Edgar G. Ulmer finally gets the attention and scholarship he deserves in Noah Isenberg’s new book: Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker At The Margins. Ulmer was ambitious, and a teller of tall tales about his career: it might never be possible to untangle fact from fiction on his early years in Vienna and (maybe) Berlin.
Sundance: Kristen Wiig & Bill Hader Dig Deep in Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins
You go in to The Skeleton Twins expecting to laugh because it stars Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, and you do, you laugh quite a lot. But then you end up feeling almost blindsided by this bracing look at adult lives gone horribly awry, a story of estranged two siblings who have been so thoroughly messed up from the suicide of their father and their own failed lives. Craig Johnson has created something remarkable here,
Sundance: Aubrey Plaza’s Deadly Turn in Life After Beth
Last year we interviewed Jeff Levine, the director of Warm Bodies, a zom-rom-com (excuse us) about a young woman and the zombie she falls for. The premise was fresh and the execution commendable. Julie (Teresa Palmer) finds herself falling for R (Nicholas Hoult), a zombie who still seems to retain some flicker of his sweet human soul.
In writer/director Jeff Baena’s directorial debut, Life After Beth, that premised is tweaked slightly,
Film Festivals Decoder: A Look At The World’s Top Film Fests
Sure, Sundance and Cannes have become household names, but did you know that there are nearly 4,000 film festivals held around the world every year? (There’s even a Moustache Film Festival in Portland, Maine.) The top-tier festivals have a glamorous reputation, but even at the ritziest ones, you’ll find up-and-coming independent filmmakers, film school students and everyday cinema enthusiasts rubbing elbows with A-list actors, producers and directors.
Last week marked the start of the 2012 Venice Film Festival and The Telluride Film Festival–and that's just the beginning of what will likely be the most dynamic film fest season to date.
