News

Mubi has acquired “Pavements,” Alex Ross Perry’s unconventional documentary-musical-biopic about cult ’90s slacker band Pavement, for multiple territories following its recent world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The arthouse distributor, streamer and production company has picked up all rights to the film — soon to bow in both the New York Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival — for the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, France and Canada. Meanwhile, Mubi also acquired exclusive SVOD rights for the U.S.

The deal was signed with Utopia, which is handling world sales and, the day after the film’s Venice launch, announced it would also distribute theatrically in the U.S. Mubi says it will announce its release plans in the coming months.

Directed and written by Perry (“Her Smell”), “Pavements” stars Joe Keery, Jason Schwartzman, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Logan Miller, Griffin Newman, Tim Heidecker, Michael Esper, Zoe Lister-Jones and...

Utopia has acquired US rights to Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements following its world premiere in Venice.

‘Pavements’: Venice Review

The film gets its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival which starts later this month and explores the iconic indie band’s path as they prepare for a sold-out 2022 reunion tour and tracking a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history, and a Hollywood biopic.

The film’s scripted scenes feature Joe Keery, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Logan Miller, Griffin Newman, Tim Heidecker, and Jason Schwartzman. The musical within the film includes Michael Esper,...

Utopia has picked up the U.S. rights to Pavements, director Alex Ross Perry’s musical portrait of the 1990s al-rock band a day after a world premiere in Venice earlier this week.

“One of our favorite filmmakers, one of our favorite bands, Pavements joining Utopia is simply a dream come true. The band’s iconic status has only continued to blossom out of the ’90s and Alex has crafted a film that transcends documentary and questions what the format can be in a surprising and novel way,” Utopia head of marketing and distribution Kyle Greenberg said in a statement on Friday.

Pavements will also have a North American premiere at the New York Film Festival. The musical biopic tracks the influential rock band as they prepare for a 2022 reunion tour in the prism of their earlier accomplishments.

“This multifaceted meta-movie is at once documentary, musical comedy, faux biopic and real museum exhibition.

Utopia has acquired U.S. rights to acclaimed director Alex Ross Perry’s “Pavements,” the day after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The film debuted to strong reviews, with Variety saying “’Pavements’ dazzles as a spinning plates act,” and Screen describing it as “a joyous, slyly subversive celebration.”

A boundary-breaking look at the seminal band Pavement, the film is edited and produced by filmmaker Robert Greene and will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival later this fall.

An examination of the iconic 90s indie band, “Pavements” appears to be just another music documentary, until it doesn’t. A “prismatic, narrative, scripted, documentary, musical, metatextual hybrid,” the film intimately shows the band preparing for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour while simultaneously tracking the preparations for a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history and a big-budget Hollywood biopic inspired by...

“The Sweet East” is on the road again, this time heading across the pond for a theatrical release via Utopia, which has acquired the drama’s U.K. rights.

Marking celebrated cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ feature debut, “The Sweet East” stars Talia Ryder, Ayo Edebiri, Jacob Elordi, Simon Rex and Jeremy O. Harris as they embark on a road trip across the U.S. Utopia purchased the North American rights to the film last year following its Director’s Fortnight premiere at Cannes Film Festival, and has since shepherded it around the continent to play in theaters in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Atlanta, D.C. and more.

In addition to acquiring the U.K. rights for the film, Utopia is teaming up with Gotham Photochemical to produce new 35mm prints for “The Sweet East’s” continued theatrical expansion in North America and the U.K. The first 35mm...

For the past decade-and-a-half, cinematographer Sean Price Williams has been a staple of the New York indie-film scene, lensing features for (naming just a handful) the Safdie brothers, Alex Ross Perry, Michael Almereyda, Robert Greene.

The Sweet East finds Williams moving to the director’s chair with a script from film critic Nick Pinkerton. Deliberately provocative and very funny, The Sweet East begins with a Pizzagate sequence that separates high-schooler Lillian from her classmates in D.C. From there she drifts throughout the Northeast, mingling with a cast of outsiders who all take a special, often sexual interest in her, among them a disorganized band of Antifa-esque punks, an over-eager filmmaking duo (Ayo Edebiri and playwright Jeremy O. Harris), and closeted Neo-Nazi academic Lawrence (Simon Rex).

Fans of Pinkerton’s film criticism and Twitter account will be pleased by the wordsmithery of his dialogue, especially Lawrence’s extended monologues on...

There’s nothing as sweet as discovering the inner cults behind modern America. Or so it seems to acclaimed cinematographer Sean Price Williams, who makes his directorial debut with twisted coming-of-age dramedy “The Sweet East” that stars a who’s who of millennial–Gen Z talent.

Written by Nick Pinkerton, “The Sweet East” follows a high school senior Lillian (Talia Ryder) who hails from South Carolina and gets her first glimpse of the wider world on a class trip to Washington, D.C. Separated from her schoolmates, she embarks on a fractured road trip in search of America. Along the way, she falls in with a variety of strange factions, each living out their own alternative realities in our present day.

Jacob Elordi, Jeremy O. Harris, Ayo Edebiri, Simon Rex, Early Cave, Rish Shah, and Gibby Haynes also star as the outrageous characters Lillian meets along the way home.

Featuring...

The travelogue drama also recenlty screened at Karlovy Vary.

Utopia has acquired North American rights to The Sweet East, Sean Price Williams’ drama that had its premiere in this year’s Cannes festival Directors’ Fortnight.

Los Angeles-based Utopia is planning an autumn US release for the film, which also recently screened at the Karlovy Vary festival.

Marking the solo feature directing debut of independent film cinematographer Williams, The Sweet East follows a high school student who runs away and on her travels through the US encounters everything from white supremacists to Islamic radicals.

Film critic Nick Pinkerton wrote the script...

Utopia has acquired North American rights to “The Sweet East,” a contemporary travelogue that marks the feature directing debut of Sean Price Williams. The sale comes after the film debuted at Director’s Fortnight during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Williams has a reputation as one of the most talented cinematographers in the independent film space, having previously worked with the likes of the Safdie Brothers, Alex Ross Perry, Michael Almereyda, Abel Ferrara and Albert Maysles. Here, he brings a script by cult film critic Nick Pinkerton to the screen.

Critics hailed the film as fresh and often funny, while praising the performance of Talia Ryder, who played a key supporting role in “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.” In “The Sweet East,” she plays Lillian, who runs away while on a school trip, encountering everyone from white supremacists and Islamic radicals to neo-punks and woke avant-gardists. The film also stars Simon Rex...

Exclusive: New York-based consulting and distribution agency Circle Collective, in partnership with Mubi, is set to release feature Project Space 13, a pandemic-inspired satirical comedy whose team includes DoP Sean Price Williams (Good Time).

The film is the fourth feature by Michael M. Bilandic reuniting cast members from his previous comedies Jobe’z World, Hellaware and Happy Life. Craig Butta (The Birthday Cake) and Daniel Weissbluth (Hellaware) produce.

The movie follows Nate, an emerging performance artist, who finally gets a coveted show at a Manhattan gallery, but right when he begins his provocative piece, the entire city shuts down for Covid-19. Unswayed, he locks himself in the white cube space to continue his performance for an audience of none. As tensions flare outside, the gallery hires private security to watch over him and his art. Over the course of one night, two armed guards and Nate argue about everything, reveal their darkest secrets,...

Screen Media has acquired North American rights to “The Birthday Cake,” a mob crime drama that boasts a murderer’s row of talent.

The film may be Jimmy Giannopoulos’ feature directorial debut, but the director attracted such stars and veterans as Shiloh Fernandez, Ewan McGregor, Val Kilmer, Lorraine Bracco, William Fichtner, Ashley Benson, Luis Guzman, Paul Sorvino, Vincent Pastore, Aldis Hodge, Penn Badgley, Emory Cohen, and Jeremy Allen White. That’s partly because the filmmaker spent years working in short films and music with artists including Miley Cyrus, A$AP Rocky and Kid Cudi. Screen Media will release the film in theaters and on demand in June 2021.

Here’s the official logline: “‘The Birthday Cake’ takes place on one fateful evening in the life of Gio (Fernandez), the son of a murdered mobster and the nephew of Brooklyn mob boss, Angelo (Kilmer). On the 10th anniversary of his father’s mysterious death,...

Person To Person Review Person to Person (2017) Film Review, a movie directed by Dustin Guy Defa, and starring Michael Cera, Abbi Jacobson, Philip Baker Hall, Michaela Watkins, Tavi Gevinson, Olivia Luccardi, Craig Butta, Ben Rosenfeld, Hunter Zimmy, Bene Coopersmith, George Semple III, Buddy Duress, [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Person To Person (2017): A Simple, Silly Day In The Life Of New York City...

Factory 25 announced today the BricTV premiere of the comedy series “Dad Day” created by Craig Butta and James Mennella. The six-episode series marks the first narrative series produced by Factory 25 as well as the first series directed and staring Butta, whose previous acting credits include Alex Ross Perry’s “Listen Up Philip” and Charles Poekel’s “Christmas, Again.”

Read More: Factory 25 Acquires Wfmu Doc ‘Sex and Broadcasting’

The series follows Craig (Butta) and James (Artie Brennan) as they struggles with fatherhood and friendship in a continually gentrifying New York. The guys want James’ son Henry to be raised like an authentic New Yorker and each episode explores what exactly that means nowadays, and how to best instill local values in a place that doesn’t resemble your home anymore.

“Dad Day is a pure look at modern man in modern Brooklyn,” says director Alex Ross Perry. “Vulgar, sad and at times absurd,...

Chicago – Elisabeth Moss is the ‘Actor of Her Generation.’ She is a true chameleon, and can anchor a lead role while still expressing a twitch of consequence. The subject is depression in “Queen of Earth,” and writer/director Alex Ross Perry is able to honestly portray it through Moss.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

The setting is a lake house, which gives the heavy subject a simplicity, and allows the actors to use the environment as a stage – they continue to confront each other in that space, despite the inherent distance that grows between them. There is an immediate empathy towards Moss, as the audience is privy to a her her boyfriend leaving her in a stunning scene that opens the film. As she escapes to her best friend’s lake cabin, she cannot deal with the simplest elements of maintaining life, and although any getaway vacation can be defined as therapeutic, nobody in...

Fans of Alex Ross Perry’s films like "The Color Wheel" and “Listen Up Philip” are in for a treat with his mysterious upcoming “Queen of Earth.” Debuting at the Berlin International Film Festival this weekend, “Queen Of Earth” stars Elisabeth Moss (“Mad Men”) and Katherine Waterston (“Inherent Vice”) as two old friends whose retreat to a beach house exposes just how far they have drifted apart. The movie co-stars Patrick Fugit, Kentucker Audley, Kate Lyn Sheil and Craig Butta, and we’ll just say it’s likely nothing that you expected. Here’s the official synopsis: Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) has entered a particularly dark period in her life: her father, a famous artist whose affairs she managed, has recently died, and on the heels of his death she's dumped by her boyfriend James (Kentucker Audley). Looking to recuperate, Catherine heads out to her best friend Virginia's (Katherine Waterston) lake house for some much needed.

It’s a film festival! It’s a sideshow! It’s both! It’s the 12th annual Coney Island Film Festival, which will be taking over the world famous Sideshows by the Seashore and other venues on Sept. 21-23 at one of the most wonderful places on Earth: Coney Island!

This year’s fun begins on the 21st with the knock-’em-dead (literally) Opening Night film Play Dead, co-directed by underground journalist Shade Rupe and the world’s greatest silent magician, Teller. The film is a documentary performance of Teller and Coney Island’s own Todd Robbins hit live off-Broadway gore-a-thon.

Play Dead will then be followed by a wild Opening Night Party featuring a performance by Mr. Robbins, plus lots of burlesque performances, Go Go dancers and other crazy surprises.

Some of the other highlights of this year’s Ciff include the Mark Mori’s documentary Bettie Page Reveals All...

Some of you might wonder how we pick content for Quiet Earth being as we report on things in development which barely have any information available or fully done flicks complete with trailers. That's not an easy question to answer, but I generally look at what is available and get a feeling, sometimes quite strongly, on the possibility of whatever project and that's the case here. While the trailer we have for Sea Legs barely shows anything, it, combined with the synopsis, more than piques my interest. Could it be another silent meditation captured on film? I don't know, but it's premiering at the Brooklyn International Film Festival and we'll be keeping an eye on it.

With the power of gesture and a minimum of words, a riveting character embarks on a doomed enterprise -- his responsibility for his father's inheritance is transformed into a search for elusive, otherworldly beauty.