News

Fledgling US distributor and international sales agency The Forge, led by longtime producer and Vashon Island Film Festival director Mark Mathias Sayre, is heading to Cannes with a slate including Civil War epic Freedom’s Path.

Brett Smith’s drama stars Gerran Howell, Rj Cyler, and Ewen Bremner and centres on a Union solider who flees battle and is rescued by a free Black man operating a section of the Underground Railroad.

The roster includes Matthew Mishory’s documentary Fioretta, which will open in the US through Gravitas Ventures and profiles lawyer and philanthropist Randy Schoenberg’s search for his oldest recorded ancestor.

Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to coming-of-age drama Who Are You People, starring Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), Devon Sawa (Gasoline Alley), Alyssa Milano (Brazen), Yeardley Smith (The Simpsons) and John Ales (Euphoria).

Written and directed by Ben Epstein, the film is due to get a day-and-date theatrical release on February 17, 2023.

In the movie, after a botched attempt to seduce her teacher, 16-year-old Alex (Horvath) runs away from boarding school to seek out the biological father (Sawa) that her mother (Milano) and presumed father (John Ales) always kept hidden and learn the dark secret of her roots.

Pic was produced by Epstein and Toby Louie alongside Jordan Foley and Nick Smith for Paperclip Ltd. It premiered at the Mammoth Film Festival, where Horvath received the Best Actress Award.

The deal was negotiated by Brett Rogalsky of Gravitas Ventures with Matthew Shreder...

Exclusive: Alyssa Milano (Brazen), Virginia Madsen (Sideways), Gina Torres (9-1-1: Lone Star) and Milana Vayntrub (This Is Us) have signed on for roles in the feature-length anthology Give Me an A, which links together 15 short films, in response to the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The film currently in post-production will have been completed within two months from the date of Roe’s overturning — which eliminated the longstanding constitutional right to abortion — in an effort to ensure this is a response and not a delayed reaction. The creators, cast and crew have made a significant effort to expedite the process in order to start a conversation with audiences about the importance of bodily autonomy and address the dysfunction of a democracy that is not protecting the needs of a majority of the population. Support from vendors like Keslow, Panavision and The Ebell of Los Angeles has allowed...

The Montclair Film Festival (Mff) unveiled its 2021 winners, with Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person In The World taking the top prize. This year’s festival featured four competitive categories: Fiction, Documentary, Future/ Now, and New Jersey Filmmaking. Additionally, the Fiction and Documentary juries also awarded films for the festival’s Short Film competitions. The Mff also announced the festival’s 2021 Audience Awards and Junior Jury prizes.

The Festival’s 2021 Audience Awards were given to Belfast, directed by Kenneth Branagh for fiction feature; Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over, directed by Dave Wooley for Non-Fiction Feature; Flee directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, for World Cinema, and Larry & Me directed by Lisa Melmed, for Short Film.

Flee, directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, wins the Bruce Sinofsky Award for Non-Fiction Feature and What Do We See When We Look At The Sky, directed by Aleksandre Koberidze, wins the Mark Urman Award For Fiction Filmmaking.