“Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” to Feature Five Films premiering simultaneously at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and Nationwide Through Sundance Selects VOD Offering
New York, NY — Sundance Selects, the theatrical and video-on-demand film label, have announced the second partnership with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (January 20th – 30th, Park City, UT). As part of the “Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” initiative, five films being screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival will simultaneously be available nationwide, on-demand, through Sundance Selects. The films include four world premieres recently acquired by Sundance Selects (Brendan Fletcher’s MAD BASTARDS, Michael Tully’s SEPTIEN, Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s THESE AMAZING SHADOWS, and Joe Swanberg’s UNCLE KENT) and one U.S. premiere (Gregg Araki’s KABOOM). The films featured through the Sundance Institute and Sundance Selects partnership will begin screening on video-on-demand at the same time as their premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, and will be available in approximately 40 million homes on most major cable systems including Bright House, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, and Time Warner Cable.
President of Sundance Selects Jonathan Sehring said, “Working with the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Institute has been an exceptional collaboration for us. We love being able to, once again, take some of the remarkable films that Sundance Film Festival has to offer this year, directly to the homes of millions of film lovers who won’t be able to make the trek to Sundance.”
John Cooper, Director, Sundance Film Festival said, “As part of the Sundance family, we have always been excited about discovering innovative ways to help our filmmakers find their audience.”
Films selected for the 2011 “Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” program are:
Sundance veteran Gregg Araki returns to the festival with KABOOM, a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super hot young cast. The film is a wild, sex-drenched, comical thriller that tells the story of Smith, an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. Written and directed by Araki (who has shown eight films at Sundance from his breakthrough The Living End, to The Doom Generation to his masterpiece Mysterious Skin), and produced by Araki and his longtime producer Andrea Sperling, the film stars Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple, Haley Bennett, Chris Zylka, Roxane Mesquida, Andy Fischer-Price, James Duval and Kelly Lynch. The film made its world premiere in the Main Selection at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and had its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2010. KABOOM will make its U.S. premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously on-demand on January 21, followed by a platformed national theatrical run beginning January 28th at the IFC Center in New York City and February 4th at Landmark’s NuArt Theater in Los Angeles, with additional markets and theaters to follow. The film will be shown in the Spotlight section.
Brendan Fletcher’s MAD BASTARDS follows TJ who is a “mad bastard,” and his estranged 13-year-old son Bullet who is on the fast track to becoming one, too. After being turned away from his mother’s house, TJ sets off across the country to the Kimberly region of northwestern Australia to make things right with his son. Grandpa Tex has lived a tough life, and now, as a local cop, he wants to change things for the men in his community. Crosscutting between three generations, the film is a raw look at the journey to becoming a man and the personal transformation one must make. Developed with local Aboriginal communities and fueled by a local cast, MAD BASTARDS draws from the rich tradition of storytelling inherent in Indigenous life. Using music from legendary Broome musicians “The Pigram Brothers”, Fletcher (who wrote and directed) poetically fuses the harsh realities of violence, healing, and family. The film will make its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously on-demand on January 24. The film will be shown in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section.
Michael Tully’s SEPTIEN follows Cornelius Rawlings who returns to his family’s farm eighteen years after disappearing without a trace. While his parents are long deceased, Cornelius’s brothers continue to live in isolation on this forgotten piece of land. Ezra is a freak for two things: cleanliness and Jesus. Amos is a self-taught artist who fetishizes sports and Satan. Although back home, Cornelius is still distant. In between challenging strangers to one-on-one games, he huffs and drinks the days away. The family’s high-school sports demons show up one day in the guise of a plumber and a pretty girl. Only a mysterious drifter can redeem their souls on 4th and goal. Triple-threat actor/writer/director Tully creates a backwoods world that’s only a few trees away from our own, complete with characters on the edge of sanity that we can actually relate to. A hero tale gone wrong, SEPTIEN is funny when it’s inappropriate to laugh, and realistic when it should be psychotic. The film will make its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously on-demand on January 23. The film will have select national theatrical dates in 2011. The film will be shown in the Park City at Midnight section.
Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s THESE AMAZING SHADOWS asks the question: what do films like Casablanca, Blazing Saddles and West Side Story have in common? As the government-appointed protector of our cinematic legacy, the National Film Registry selects culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant works for preservation in the Library of Congress. From award-winning features to music videos, experimental films to home movies, each Registry selection reflects a truth of its time or a standout artistic vision. Through interviews with Registry board members, archivists, and notable filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Rob Reiner, John Waters, John Singleton, John Lasseter and Barbara Kopple, the filmmakers demonstrate the way film documents artistic and societal milestones. Guided by a true cinephile’s love of the medium and a treasure trove of archival footage, the film molds a cultural history from pieces of film, offering a microcosm of the work of the National Film Registry and making a powerful case for film preservation. The film will make its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously on-demand on January 22. The film will be shown in the Documentary Premieres section.
Joe Swanberg makes his first Sundance appearance with his most mature film, UNCLE KENT, an achingly true-to-life modern comedy about aging, loneliness, desire, and the awkward intimacies of online friendship. The film follows 40 year-old Kent (Kent Osborne) who is an unmarried children’s-show writer living alone with his cat in Los Angeles. He spends his days sketching gag cartoons and bouncing ideas off his hyperactive friend, Kev (Kevin Bewersdorf), and his nights staving off loneliness in Internet chat rooms. When one of Kent’s online acquaintances, environmental journalist Kate (Jennifer Prediger), crashes at his house for the weekend, he finds himself attracted to her coquettish manner and frank emotional openness but sexually frustrated by her fidelity to a distant boyfriend. Shot on location in Los Angeles, UNCLE KENT advances many themes and elements found in Swanberg’s early films (Hannah Takes The Stairs, Nights and Weekends, Alexander the Last), including freely improvised dialogue, art-mirrors-life setups, and a renewed emphasis on how technology and other social media enable (or disable) human connection. The cast includes previous collaborators Kent Osborne and composer/actor Kevin Bewersdorf, director Josephine Decker, and newcomer Jennifer Prediger. The film, which marks Swanberg’s Park City debut, will make its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and simultaneously on-demand on January 21. The film will be shown in the Spotlight section.
“Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” will be available for approximately 30 days on each cable system’s main movies-on-demand channel in a special “Sundance Film Festival” branded section.
The deal for MAD BASTARDS, which includes all U.S. rights, was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, SVP of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, and with Charlotte Mickie at Entertainment One on behalf of the filmmakers. The deal for SEPTIEN, which is for all rights in North America, France, Benelux, East-Central Europe, Turkey, Greece, and Asia, was negotiated by Jeff Deutchman, Manager of Acquisitions & Productions, with George Rush on behalf of the filmmakers. The deal for THESE AMAZING SHADOWS, which is for all non-theatrical U.S. rights, was negotiated by Elizabeth Nastro, Director of Acquisitions & Co-Productions, with Ben Weiss at Paradigm on behalf of the filmmakers. Acquisition announcements for UNCLE KENT and KABOOM were previously announced.
Sundance Selects is a sister company to IFC Films.
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