2024 Festivals/Awards Thread

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First wave of SXSW titles are here, which means its time for the start of the 2024 Festival/Awards thread. The Fall Guy, Babes, Azrael and the North American debut of Cuckoo topline the first wave of SXSW premieres. The rest of the main feature slate including the opening and closing night films will be announced in a few weeks.

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Kind of surprised to find out Azrael cost $12 million to produce. Given the indie backgrounds of the writer and director and it being an Estonian production with no big stars, I would have guessed a budget under $3 million.

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Maybe the action scenes are bigger than expected or the Eastern European crews are starting to get more expensive.

[Buscemi2]

I did see it's a post-apocalyptic thriller, which must have what attracted Paramount to buy the domestic rights.

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Kneecap and Ibelin are the first two Sundance debuts to find distribution with Sony Classics and Netflix nabbing the respective rights. I'm going to make an acquisitions post right below this one that I'll update for the next 6 weeks or so as the deals trickle in.

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Sundance Acquisitions:
Kneecap: Sony Classics (North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Turkey)
Ibelin: Netflix (Worldwide)
A Real Pain: Searchlight (Worldwide)
It's What's Inside: Netflix (Worldwide)
Presence: Neon (Worldwide)
Ghostlight: IFC/Sapan Studios (North America)
My Old Ass: Amazon/MGM (Worldwide)
Skywalkers: A Love Story: Netflix (Worldwide)
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story: Warner Brothers (Worldwide)
Thlema: Magnolia (North America)
Daughters: Netflix (Worldwide)
Didi: Focus (Worldwide)
Will & Harper: Netflix (Worldwide)
Between the Temples: Sony Classics (Worldwide)
Good One: Metrograph Pictures (North America)
Sugarcane: National Geographic Documentary Films (Worldwide)
Sebastian: Kino Lorber (North America)
Your Monster: Vertical (North America)

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And the first narrative competition title to land a distribution deal at Sundance is...: Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain. Searchlight took the WW rights and will release it theatrically sometime this year.

[Buscemi2]

Must be a good comeback film for Eisenberg. He really seemed to fall off the face of the earth after 2019.

And based on the Everything is Illuminated-like plot, Disney's probably viewing it as a big awards contender.

[Buscemi2]

Looks like Disney made the right move in dumping Suncoast onto Hulu. Early word is merely average and point out it's nothing more than another forgettable made-for-Sundance movie.

[numbersix]

Must be a good comeback film for Eisenberg. He really seemed to fall off the face of the earth after 2019.

He played the lead in the Fleischman in Trouble series which did really well internationally

[Buscemi2]

I don't follow Hulu shows. For example, I have no idea what The Bear is other than it sounds an awful lot like that AMC show with David Schwimmer absolutely no one watched.

[transformers2]

The restaurant setting is where the parallels between The Bear and Feed the Beast start and end. They couldn't possibly be any more different in tone, plots and clearly in a lot of people's eyes including mine, quality.

Anyways, Doug Liman confirmed in an op-ed he wrote for Deadline in which he condemned Amazon's decision to send it straight-to-streaming and the streamer's approach to the theatrical business in general that Road House will be SXSW's Opening Night film.

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Sundance Award Winners:

World Documentary Competition:
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Craft
“Nocturnes,” Director and Producer: Anirban Dutta, Director: Anupama Srinivasan

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” Director Johan Grimonprez

Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary
“Ibelin,” Director Benjamin Ree

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
“A New Kind of Wilderness”

World Dramatic Competition:
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Original Music
“Handling the Undead,” Peter Raeburn

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting
Preeti Panigrahi, “Girls Will Be Girls”

Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic
“In The Land Of Brothers,” Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi

World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
“Sujo”

Next:
NEXT Special Jury Award
“Desire Lines”

NEXT Innovator Award
“Little Death"

Audience Awards:
Audience Award: NEXT
“Kneecap”

Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary
“Ibelin”

Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic
“Girls Will Be Girls”

Audience Award: U.S. Documentary
“Daughters”

Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic
“Didi”

Festival Favorite Award
“Daughters”

U.S. Documentary Competition:
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Sound
“Gaucho Gaucho”

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art Of Change
“Union”

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: U.S. Documentary
“Frida,” Carla Gutiérrez

Directing Award: U.S. Documentary
“Sugarcane,” Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
“Porcelain War”

U.S. Dramatic Competition:
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance
Nico Parker, “Suncoast”

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble
Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, Chang Li Hua, “Didi”

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic
Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”

Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic
Alessandra Lacorazza, “In the Summers”

U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
“In the Summers"

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Monkey Man, Immaculate, Y2K, The Greatest Hits, Arcadian, Musica, The Gutter and Omni Loop will all have their World Premieres at SXSW.

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Civil War will have its world premiere at SXSW on March 14th as one of the fest's "surprise" screenings. Ballsy move by A24 considering the high potential for backlash, but clearly, they're confident in the movie that Alex Garland made.