Park City, Utah – 28 January 2016 – Sundance Channel Global has announced a number of film acquisitions from the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. The five newly acquired films will premiere exclusively on Sundance Channel Global, shortly after the festival this year. The film titles, which will be premieres in each respective Sundance Channel market, include Mammal, The Fits, Spa Night, Jacqueline (Argentine) and Mi Amiga Del Parque.
Mammal has been acquired for Central and Eastern Europe, Iberia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. The Fits and Jacqueline (Argentine) have been acquired for Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Dutch Benelux, Iberia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. Spa Night has been acquired for Dutch Benelux, Central and Eastern Europe, Iberia and Latin America. Mi Amiga Del Parque has been acquired for Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Dutch Benelux, Iberia, and the Middle East and North Africa.
“Sundance Channel Global has experienced significant growth in the past few years with its exciting line-up of first window original programming including independent films and series,” said Gail Gendler, Vice President, Acquisitions, AMC/Sundance Channel Global. “The Sundance Film Festival is an outstanding marketplace for top quality independent films, and we are truly excited to share these five new exclusive titles with our audiences around the world after seeing them in Park City.”
Below is additional information about each title acquired at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Mammal / Ireland, Luxembourg and Netherlands / Director: Rebecca Daly, Screenwriters: Rebecca Daly and Glenn Montgomery
Margaret, a divorced woman living alone in Dublin, learns that her teenage son has been found dead. Enduring her unsettling grief privately, she escapes daily to the local swimming pool. One day at the pool she runs into Joe, a homeless youth she found injured late one night in the deserted laneway behind her work. Margaret offers Joe a room in her house and an unorthodox relationship starts to develop between them. Margaret’s ex-husband Matt begins to turn up randomly in Margaret’s life. As Margaret and Joe’s mutual reliance grows their tentative trust is threatened by the escalation of Matt’s grieving rage and Joe’s involvement with a gang of violent youths.
Cast: Rachel Griffiths, Barry Keoghan, Michael McElhatton
Licensor: Picture Tree International GmBH
The Fits / USA and Italy / Director: Anna Rose Holmer, Screenwriters: Anna Rose Holmer, Saela Davis, Lisa Kjerulff
Toni, an 11-year-old tomboy, trains as a boxer with her brother at a recreation centre in Cincinnati’s West End and becomes fascinated by the dance drill team that also practices there. Drawn to their strength and confidence, Toni eventually joins the group, tirelessly rehearsing the routines, befriending some of the girls and even piercing her ears to fit in. But when members of the tight-knit group start experiencing mysterious fits of shaking and fainting, Toni’s desire for acceptance becomes complicated. The Fits brims with breakout talent, including Royalty Hightower’s captivating performance as Toni and filmmaker Anna Rose Holmer, in her feature debut, displaying a striking and distinctive vision. Ultimately, the film is a cinematic meditation on movement, the body, adolescence, and identity that eludes easy categorisation.
Cast: Royalty Hightower, Alexis Neblett, Da’Sean Minor, Laren Gibson, Makyla Burnam, Inayah Rodgers
Licensor: Mongrel Media
Jacqueline (Argentine) / USA / Director and Screenwriter: Bernardo Britto
A filmmaker introduces us to the subject of his documentary—the beautiful Jacqueline Dumont, a young Frenchwoman who claims to have uncovered a covert assassination conspiracy. While unsure of the eccentric Jacqueline’s veracity, the filmmaker nonetheless enlists a couple of interns and heads to the holistic retreat in Argentina where she’s hiding out, to explore her claims and film her story. Upon arrival, the filmmaker begins to doubt the worthwhileness of his venture, but finds reasons to hope that he might actually be capturing something big, something real, with his increasingly makeshift film. Driven by Wyatt Cenac’s drily witty performance as the unnamed filmmaker, Jacqueline (Argentine) is a hilarious, low-key misadventure, that also insightfully explores a director’s ambiguous relationship to his craft and continually turns its political thriller underpinnings on their head. First-time feature director Bernardo Britto (a Jury Prize winner for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival short Yearbook) makes fresh use of the mockumentary format to create a film playful in both form and content that reflects the uncertainties and hopefulness inherent in every artistic endeavor.
Cast: Camille Rutherford, Wyatt Cenac, James Benson, Martin Anderson, Sarah Willis, Enrique Dura
Licensor: Visit Films
Mi Amiga Del Parque / Argentina & Uruguay / Director: Ana Katz, Screenwriters: Ana Katz, Inés
Bortagaray
While her filmmaker husband works in Chile, harried young mother Liz struggles to take care of her infant son. Feeling out of place amongst the tight-knit group of other parents at the park, doubted by her husband, and judged by her newly hired nanny, Liz is drawn to factory worker Rosa, a plain-talking single mother she meets at the swings one day. Despite Liz’s liberation upon finding a bold new confidante, the friends’ increasingly apparent class differences, along with swirling rumors about Rosa’s motives and muddy family situation, feed Liz’s suspicions that her new pal might be a sinister influence on her already fragile life. An honest appraisal of the public and private faces of motherhood, Mi Amiga del Parque casts the insecurities and exaltations of female friendship in equally sharp relief. In the role of Liz, Julieta Zylberberg fully embodies the anxieties and discomfort of a woman unraveling at the upheaval of her entire identity, while Ana Katz (who is also the film’s writer/director) plays the shrewd, fiery Rosa with a fierce sensitivity that earns both empathy and suspense.
Cast: Julieta Zylberberg, Ana Katz, Marciel Alvarez, Mirelal Pascual, Malena Figo, Daniel Hendler
Licensor: Visit Films
Spa Night / USA / Director and Screenwriter: Andrew Ahn
Los Angeles’ Korean spas serve as meeting place and bridge between past and future for generations of immigrant families. Spa Night explores one Korean-American family’s dreams and realities as each struggles with the overlap of personal desire, disillusionment and sense of tradition.
Cast: Joe Seo, Haerry Kim, Youn Ho Cho, Ho Young Chung, Linda Han
Licensor: The Film Sales Co.
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