Ahead of ‘Avatar’ and Year-End, Indie Film Crush Puts Arthouse Issues on the Backburner – Specialty Preview

A number of titles are on the dedicated track ahead of Steamroller this weekend Avatar: Away from the water and the year-end deadline to be considered for an Oscar. It’s a moment of introspection that comes in a market that is still far too inconsistent for comfort, but that can be thought about later. Right now, indie distributors are pretty busy “with all these movies and these plans to hit theaters. We’re not going anywhere,” said one driver.

The Gotham Awards before it were a hit. Focus Features Chairman Peter Kujawski recalled “the mission we all share in the specialty film industry” at the awards ceremony in New York.

“To all our friends at A24, at Neon, at Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, IFC, Bleecker Street, FilmNation, Cinetic, Participant and so many other great companies,” he said, accepting tributes from the Industry counter with Vice Chairman Jason Cassidy – “We’re in it together, defending a safe space for artists and audiences to connect. Your strength is our strength. Our profits are your profits. So thank you for all you do for this community and for letting us want to share be of.

(He also thanked Donna Langley, Jeff Shell and Brian Roberts, CEO of parent company Comcast, for pointing out a void in the broader specialty film industry in terms of resources, if not aesthetics.)

Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera called supporting independent films a “duty, not a choice.” Indie filmmakers “prefer to take risks rather than rely on tried and tested formulas. In doing so, they change the way we see the world and each other.”

Daniel Kwan, co-director with Daniel Scheinert of A24’s indie hit Everything everywhere at once said he was as surprised by the film’s outburst as anyone. “It’s a miracle that a stand-alone, original story actually finds an audience and is recognized. Everyone in this room, you are doing the impossible and necessary work.”

Open this weekend: Focus presents Michael Showalters Devastation warning today at six locations in NY, LA and San Francisco, expanding on December 9. Written by David Marshall Grant, Dan Savage and Michael Ausiello, based on Ausiello’s memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, starring Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge and Sally Field. The story of the 14-year love affair between entertainment journalist Michael (Parsons) and his photographer partner Kit (Aldridge). Appointment overview here.

A24 opens director/writer Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter with Tilda Swinton on 29 screens and video on demand. An artist and her elderly mother are confronted with long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home-hotel haunted by a mysterious past. Premiere in Venice. See deadline check.

The distributor also takes care of that near, Lukas Dhonts winner of the Cannes Grand Jury Prize, a qualifying run before a theatrical release at the end of January. Two thirteen-year-old best friends see their seemingly unbreakable bond suddenly and tragically torn apart. term evaluation.

Bleecker Street opens Second chance at five locations in NY and LA. Director-writer Ramin Bahrani’s Sundance Film Festival documentary explores the life and legacy of Richard Davis, the charming and brash inventor of modern body armor who shot himself 192 times to prove his product worked. It expands to the top 50 markets in a limited edition next week.

Magnolia Pictures will open hunt on 20 screens in NY, LA, San Francisco, Austin, Honolulu and elsewhere. Also available on TVOD/EST. The feature directorial debut of The Squid Game Star Lee Jung-Jae, who also served as co-writer and star. The film had its world premiere at the Midnight section of the Cannes Film Festival. Appointment overview here. HisThere was a national sneak preview with Alamo Drafthouse Wednesday in 15 theaters.

IFC Films opens the heist comedy from actor, writer and director Ravi Kapoor Four samosas on four screens. First performance in the Narrative Competition of the Tribeca Festival. A creatively stranded wannabe rapper Vinny (Venk Potula) and his friends hatch a plan to steal his soon-to-be-married ex-girlfriend’s family diamonds from her father’s supermarket safe to prevent the marriage. The film is set in the Little India neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Samuel Goldwyn Films presents Last show, India’s Oscar entry for Best International Film, in a dozen theaters. Pan Nalin’s semi-autobiographical Gujarati drama pays homage to the cinema of the past through the story of Samay, a 9-year-old boy who lives with his family in a remote village in India and discovers cinema for the first time.

Greenwich Entertainment presents documentary about voters and civil rights Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power by Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard as a day-and-date release with early theatrical engagements in NYC, LA, Chicago, Detroit and New Orleans. DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, the new doc-centric location in Lower Manhattan, features Q&As with the directors. Laemmle’s Monica Film Center is the place in LA. Lowndes premiered at Tribeca and will be released on Peacock in February.

Document by Kino Lorber Frame Agnes open on the film forum. From director Chase Joynt, it won the Audience Award for Best of NEXT and the NEXT Innovator Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary focuses on Agnes, a young trans woman who participated in a study of sexual disorders at UCLA in 1958 to help her be explored. The gender-affirming person gets the care they need. Her story was long considered extraordinary until 2017 when never-before-seen recordings of other patients were found. With Angelica Ross, Jen Richards, Zackary Drucker, Silas Howard, Max Wolf Valerio and Stephen Ira.

Gravitas presented What’s left, the last film completed by Anne Heche, in 12 theaters as a day-and-date release. Crime thriller written and directed by Nathan Scoggins follows a recently paroled convict (Kellan Lutz) who returns to the small town where he murdered the local pastor’s wife (Cress Williams), who is forced to balance his pain and anger with forgiveness. The local sheriff (Heche) is also investigating another mysterious murder that may be related. Heche died on August 11 at the age of 53 after suffering life-threatening injuries in a car accident in Los Angeles.

Reel Peak Films presents an Israeli documentary tantura by Alon Schwarz in New York (IFC Center) and Los Angeles (Laemmle Monica) and other cities to come. Premiere at Sundance. An investigation into the 1948 massacre in the Palestinian town of Tantura during the Arab-Israeli War and an Israeli investigator’s dogged work to uncover the truth.

Premiere of Sony Pictures Classics in Cannes Return to Seoul a qualifying run ahead of a February 17 theatrical release. See deadline check. The film follows Freddie, a young woman who returns for the first time to South Korea, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. The search for her biological parents in a country she knows so little about takes her in new and unexpected directions.

AppleTV+ opens Antoine Fuqua’s liberation in eight locations in seven markets, expanding to 200 theaters in 75 US markets and 65 UK/Ireland locations on September 12. Will Smith produces and plays Peter, an escaped slave in search of freedom who flees from his cold-blooded hunters across the unforgiving Louisiana swamps. Inspired by the 1863 photographs of “Whipped Peter” taken during a Union Army medical examination and first published in Harper’s Weekly. An image known as “The Scourged Back”, showing Peter’s bare back mutilated by whipping from his slaves, eventually contributed to growing public opposition to slavery. On the streamer December 9.

Presents AMC+ and RLJE Films Christmas with the Campbells in a dozen theaters and streaming on AMC+. Directed by Clare Niederpruem, Written by Barbara Kymlicka, Vince Vaughn, Dan Lagana. With Brittany Snow, Justin Long, Alex Moffat, Julia Duffy, George Wendt and JoAnna Garcia Swisher. When Jesse is dumped by her boyfriend Shawn just before the holidays, his parents convince her to spend Christmas with them and Shawn’s handsome cousin.

Trafalgar releases gifts Neil Young: Harvest Time the documentary celebrates its 50th birthday^e Anniversary of Neil Young’s best-selling album Harvest in 460 theaters across the US. The first screenings were Thursday, with encores for Sunday and a personal introduction from Young about the film and album. The feature includes footage from Northern California, London and Nashville during the creation of the Signature Album.

Crunchyroll will appear The film Quintessential Quintuplets in 910 cinemas for a week and only an event screening. This is the conclusion of the hit romantic comedy series that follows five sisters who hate studying and hire part-time teacher Futaro to guide their education and win their hearts.

GKids presents animated EVANGELION: 3.0 + 1.01 Three times at once on December 6, 8 and 11 to Imax The film Quintessential QuintupletsPreview in selected markets on 11/30. This is the fourth and final part of the new theatrical releases of Rebuild. evengelion Franchise. The film was the highest-grossing film of the year in Japan in 2021. Created by Hideaki Anno, the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise first started in 1995 as an original television series.