Toronto, ON (September 18, 2010) – Jonathan Sehring, President of IFC Films, announced today that the company has acquired U.S. rights to Barry W. Blaustein’s black comedy PEEP WORLD.
PEEP WORLD was produced by Joe Neurauter, Felipe Marino, and Keith Calder. The all-star ensemble includes Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, Rainn Wilson, Ben Schwartz, Judy Greer, Kate Mara, Ron Rifkin, Taraji P. Henson, and Lesley Ann Warren.
The deal was negotiated by IFC Films’ Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions Arianna Bocco with CAA.
On the seventieth birthday of their hard charging businessman father (Ron Rifkin), four siblings and their extended relatives make plans to reunite for dinner to celebrate the momentous occasion, despite an unshakable animosity towards one another that’s about to come to a blistering boil. The youngest sibling, Nathan (Ben Schwarz), has just published a bestselling and revealing expose about their family’s most intimate and shameful exploits, and no one is happy about it except himself.
In spite of his insurmountable financial woes, Jack (Michael C. Hall) is a semi-responsible husband and hard-working professional who is starting to feel the choke hold of his impending fatherhood. His brother Joel (Rainn Wilson) is doing the best he can to stay alive in the face of perpetual unemployment and a pair of loan sharks following his every move. Their sister Cheri (Sarah Silverman) is just plain pissed off at everyone, especially Nathan, who, along with his book, has become the lightning rod for her every neurotic complaint. Making matters worse, the movie adaptation of Nathan’s book is currently in the works, and their father’s new girlfriend (Alicia Witt) has been cast in the role of Cheri.
This is IFC Films’ fourth major acquisition at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. The company previously acquired James Gunn’s SUPER starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page, and Werner Herzog’s 3-D CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS and Barry Avrich’s UNAUTHORIZED: THE HARVEY WEINSTEIN PROJECT.
About IFC Films
Established a decade ago, IFC Films – a division of Rainbow Media’s IFC Entertainment – is the leading U.S. distributor of independent and foreign film. Its unique day and date distribution model makes independent films available to a national audience by releasing them simultaneously in theaters as well as on cable’s On Demand platform and through Pay-Per-View, reaching nearly 50 million homes. IFC Films’ “IFC Midnight” label, launched in 2010, offers the very best in international genre cinema, including horror, sci-fi, thrillers, erotic arthouse, action and more. Some of the company’s successes over the years have included MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, TOUCHING THE VOID, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, GOMORRAH, CHE, SUMMER HOURS, IN THE LOOP, ANTICHRIST, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, and WORDPLAY. IFC Films has worked with established and breakout auteurs including Steven Soderbergh, Gus Van Sant, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Miranda July, Lars Von Trier, Gaspar Noe, Todd Solondz, Cristian Mungiu, Susanne Bier, Olivier Assayas, Jim McKay, Larry Fessenden, Gregg Araki, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, as well as more recent breakouts such as Andrea Arnold, Mia Hansen Love, Corneliu Porombiou, Joe Swanberg, Barry Jenkins, Lena Dunham, Aaron Katz, Daryl Wein and Abdellatif Kechiche.
About Occupant Films
PEEP WORLD marks the second film Occupant has sold during the Toronto International Film Festival with the first being the horror thriller ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, which premiered and was acquired at the 2006 festival. Occupant Films also produced THE WACKNESS, written and directed by Jonathan Levine which was released in North America by Sony Pictures Classics on July 3, 2008.