By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

IFC FILMS TAKES NORTH AMERICAN AND LATIN AMERICAN RIGHTS TO LYNN SHELTON’S YOUR SISTER’S SISTER

Posted Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 - No Comments »

IN ADDITION, DEALS CLOSE WITH STUDIO CANAL FOR UK RIGHTS AND WITH MADMAN FOR AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND RIGHTS

Toronto, CANADA (September 14, 2011) – IFC Films announced today from the 2011 Toronto International Film Festivalthat the company is acquiring North American and Latin American rights to director Lynn Shelton’s YOUR SISTER’S SISTER.  The film, with a screenplay also by Shelton, stars Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt and Mark Duplass and was produced by Steven Schardt. IFC Films will release the film theatrically in the summer of 2012.

In addition, deals for YOUR SISTER’S SISTER have closed with Studio Canal, which has acquired UK rights, and with Madman, which has acquired rights for Australia and New Zealand.

A year after his brother’s death, Jack (Duplass) still see-saws between emotionally wobbly and outright volatile. When he makes a scene at a memorial party, Iris (Blunt) intervenes with a plan: Jack must oil up his old bike and trek to her father’s cabin on an island on Puget Sound, where isolation will give his brain a chance to detangle. When Jack gets to the woods, however, he finds not solitude but Iris’ sister Hannah (DeWitt), herself nursing a wounded heart and a bottle of tequila. After several shots and some slurred commiseration, the night takes some unexpected twists and turns. Their hangover descends in the form ofIris, who pulls up with a bag of groceries the next morning. Though ripe for love-triangle trappings, YOUR SISTER’S SISTER offers an uncontrived navigation of romantic and sibling relationships.

Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films, said: “We fell in love with YOUR SISTER’S SISTER, Lynn Shelton’s incredibly funny, moving and wisefilm featuring terrific performances by Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt and Mark Duplass.  This will be a traditional release for us, and we look forward to getting it out to the largest possible audience next summer.”

Notes Shelton: “To top off the wonderfully warm reception that Your Sister’s Sister has experienced here at TIFF by its sale to a company with the level of passion for great films that IFC has, is just incredibly gratifying. IFC dazzled us with their love for the film and I am so happy and proud that Your Sister’s Sister will be unleashed onto the world under the IFC Films banner.”

Lynn Shelton is an acclaimed filmmaker best known for the 2009 Sundance hit, HUMPDAY. Born and raised in Seattle, Shelton studied photography and acting before transitioning into film editing and experimental/documentary filmmaking. Shelton’s first narrative feature as a writer/director, WE GO WAY BACK, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at SLAMDANCE 2006. Her second feature, MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE, premiered at SXSW 2008 and earned her the Independent Spirit “Someone to Watch” Award. HUMPDAY, her third feature, premiered at SUNDANCE 2009 where it picked up a special jury prize and was bought by Magnolia Pictures. HUMPDAY was also shown at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes and picked up prizes at the Edinburgh, Deauville and Gijon film festivals. The film was released theatrically in July 2009 and received theJohn Cassavetes Award at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards.  Recently, Shelton was a guest director on the acclaimed AMC television series “MAD MEN”, directing the episode HANDS & KNEES which aired in September 2010.

The deal for the film was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films with Submarine and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.  Shelton is represented by UTA and Anonymous Content.

IFC Films is a sister division to Sundance Selects and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks, Inc.

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About IFC FILMS

Established in 2000 and based in New York City, IFC Films is a leading U.S. distributor of quality talent-driven independent film.  Its unique distribution modelmakes independent films available to a national audience by releasing them in theaters as well as on cable’s Video On Demand (VOD) platform, reaching nearly 50 million homes. Some of the company’s successes over the years have included My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Touching the Void, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Gomorrah, Che, SummerHours, Antichrist, In the Loop, Antichrist, Wordplay, Cairo Time, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Tiny Furniture, Carlos and The Trip.  Over the years, 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, and Michael Winterbottom 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. IFC Films is a sister division to Sundance Selects and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks, Inc.

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“I’m in Locarno, my movie is premiering for 1,000 people, which is nuts. A huge-ass screening, second day of the festival, 7:30pm in the sidebar competition. It’s comparable to Un Certain Regard or Director’s Fortnight. Every movie I saw in that section was fun, brilliant movies from around the world. The main competition was like Aza Jacobs and Mia Hansen-Løve, people who have been around. And I was like, “This is crazy. What am I doing inside the bloodstream of this establishment? I’m 27. I don’t belong here.” Every person I talked to there couldn’t believe what the movie cost, and then couldn’t believe when I told them what other American movies cost. We were the cheapest movie there by 65%. The next cheapest movie cost I think three times as much as we did. And they were just like, “You can’t make movies for what you’re telling us your movie cost.” And I told them, “Well, I can, I’m here, I’m in the same section as you are, so you are wrong. People think I’m lying when I tell them my budget. And also everyone likes it. I’m having a great time and people are being very responsive. Maurice Pialat’s widow was like, “I heard your movie’s good, I want a copy of it.” I’m like, “Well this is f**kin’ crazy.” Pedro Costa saw it there and really liked it and I’m like, What am I doing? I had gone in two months from screening at BAM for a lot of friends to Pedro Costa? This is the exact sentence: “Pedro Costa saw your movie. He’s a huge Jerry Lewis fan. He wants to talk to you about your movie and also Jerry Lewis.” And I thought, “I’m out of my element. I cannot have that conversation because that’s ridiculous.” Because his retrospective was happening at Anthology when I worked at Kim’s, and his Criterion box set came out when I was working at Kim’s. He can’t want to talk to me. That’s not possible. That’s not allowed. There is no world where that makes any sense!”  Or like when you wrote me to say that David Gordon Green wrote you to say, “I’m watching The Color Wheel and then I’m going to see Tree of Life.” There is no world where this is allowed! Again, somebody whose DVDs I was putting on the shelf, as, like, a hero. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’ll watch this movie.” There’s just a very fuzzy area in the middle there and it happened very quickly and I don’t understand why.  I still have a voice-mail from Sean [Price Williams, cinematographer]. I wish he was here to talk about it, but the voice-mail is a long pause and he’s just like, “I don’t want to tell you this, because it’s gonna make you so insufferable. I hate having to tell you this, but Leos Carax watched your movie and he really loves it, and he wants to meet you when he comes to New York.” I can’t live in a world where Leos Carax knows who I am, watches my movie, likes it, and thinks, “I wanna meet that guy.”
~ It’s Alex Ross Perry’s World

“I don’t know. It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. I was in Italy a few years ago scouting for this very beautiful film I wanted to make with Richard Linklater. We worked really hard on the script for a couple of years and couldn’t get the money together. It was an expensive idea. It’s heartbreaking when that happens over and over again and then the movies that do get made are ones that have lots of women being beaten up or zombies being killed. It’s all fine, it’s all okay, but it’s hard. I remember when River Phoenix died, he was ahead of me on this curve. He kind of realized how hard it was to make serious movies. People like Sidney Lumet figured out how to walk that line, but it’s hard. And it requires patience. It’s a life’s work and I wonder if I’m up to the task.”
~ Weary, Wary Ethan Hawke

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