While independent films have struggled to thrive in our long COVID marketplace, there is one silver lining in the digital distribution universe: Indie films, both familiar and obscure, from five, 10 and even 20 years ago are flourishing with an uptick in video-on-demand sales. “It’s no secret that library titles have been performing very well across the board,” says IFC Films President Arianna Bocco, “and that’s directly a result of the pandemic.”  Across the entire entertainment industry, spending on library titles has been “notably strong,” according to an August 2021 report from home entertainment trade association DEG (Digital Entertainment Group), […]

According to Box Office Mojo, our contemporary plague ended on June 14, 2021—the last day the label “COVID-19 Pandemic” was included on its daily box office reporting. But don’t tell that to anyone trying to release a film in the second half of 2021, as viral variants spread widely across America, plunging the hopes of many filmmakers and distributors. Welcome to Pandemic: Year 2. The merciless persistence of the coronavirus and its wide-ranging impact on theatrical moviegoing and home viewing habits became more entrenched over the past several months—with indies on the losing end of the stick. Struggling to gain […]

The first trailer just dropped for Nicole Riegel’s Holler, a flinty, tremendously assured debut drama with a powerful lead performance by Jessica Barden. When I interviewed Riegel last fall when her film played in Toronto’s market, she spoke of its development and financing process, during which some financiers asked her if she could make the lead male. “I wanted to tell my story, and I only knew to tell that if it was about a young woman in a very harsh, muscular environment,” Riegel told me. “And then I wanted to tell about how hard it is for young women […]

Shithouse, Cooper Raiff’s profanely-titled first feature, chronicles an inspired romance between two young souls on disparate higher education voyages. Told with real insight about college-age characters and their flawed relationships, the picture earned 23-year-old Raiff—a softhearted wunderkind who wrote, directed and starred in the film—the Grand Jury Award at this year’s pandemic-impacted SXSW.  Life between dorms and parties doesn’t exactly suit shy freshman Alex Malmquist (Raifff), who’s most comfortable seeking advice from an adorable childhood plush animal he’s brought from home. Though he puts in some effort to adapt to dorm life, he still yearns for the comforting embrace of his protective family. […]

During World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill put a network of spies behind enemy lines to aid the Resistance in Nazi-occupied countries. The SOE (Special Operations Executive) was set up to train women for the role. A Call to Spy, an IFC release opening in theaters and on demand October 2, follows three women who played crucial roles for the SOE in France. A Call to Spy is the first solo feature credit for director Lydia Dean Pilcher, after co-directing Radium Girls with Ginny Mohler. A veteran producer, Pilcher has worked in a wide variety of genres for the […]

Sundance vet Laura Gabbert (No Impact Man, Sunset Story) is no stranger to the foodie world, having directed 2015’s City of Gold, which follows the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold on his culinary excursions throughout LA. Now, with Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles, Gabbert turns her lens to the other coast and across the pond, globetrotting through time and space with seven-time NY Times bestselling cookbook author and renowned restauranteur Yotam Ottolenghi. Though the Israeli Jew (whose business partner is a Jerusalem-born Muslim) is based in London, he’s invited by the Met to curate an edible, cake-centric exhibition […]

How do you measure success these days?  When more than two million people vote for you over the other guy and you still lose? When you receive no endorsements from a single major newspaper, your party’s leadership practically ignores you, and you still win? Or, perhaps, when your heralded Sundance acquisition earns a whopping $15.8 million at the box office, but you spend more than twice that in acquisition fees and prints and advertising costs to release it? (i.e., The Birth of a Nation). How about if your film isn’t released in theaters at all, but Netflix paid $5 million […]

Courtesy of our friends at IFC Films, Filmmaker has posted a short documentary about The Reluctant Fundamentalist on our YouTube page. The film, which opens tomorrow in NYC and LA, tells the story of Changez (Riz Ahmed), a Pakistani man whose life in America was inexorably altered by 9/11. At the time of the World Trade Center attacks, Changez was a fresh Princeton grad seeking his fortune on Wall Street and, with his American girlfriend Erica (Kate Hudson) at his side, the American Dream seemed imminent. But following the attacks, a cultural divide opens between the couple and Changez’s life turns for […]

Lucy Mulloy’s Una Noche, a big winner at Tribeca last month, has been acquired by Sundance Selects for distribution in North America. The film netted the young director an award for Best New Narrative Director at Tribeca Film Festival in April, as well as accolades for cinematography and acting. Mulloy wrote the screenplay, a story of three disillusioned Cuban teenagers who undertake the tense 90-mile journey from Cuba to Miami. Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects and IFC Films, issued a statement calling Mulloy’s debut feature “a remarkable first film that vividly takes us into the lives of 3 teenagers […]

indieWIRE reports that IFC Films has bought Lynn Shelton‘s You Sister’s Sister. The film, which stars Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass and Mike Birbiglia, premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows Jack (Duplass), who still reeling over the death of his brother a year earlier, gets a suggestion from Iris (Blunt), his best friend and dead brother’s ex, that they take a trip to his father’s cabin to get his bearings. And there he’s unexpectedly confronted by Hannah (DeWitt), Iris’ sister. IFC plans to release the film in 2012. Read our interview with Lynn […]