Grasshopper Film Acquires U.S. Rights to Sundance Winner ‘Last Men in Aleppo’
Grasshopper Films has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to “Last Men in Aleppo,” Feras Fayyad’s documentary chronicling the agonizing search-and-rescue missions of the White Helmets, an unarmed, volunteer faction of men who scour the battered debris of Syria’s largest city in the hopes of retrieving abandoned civilians.
The film, directed by Fayyad alongside co-director and editor Steen Johannesen, won the World Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and has since received critical acclaim for its intimate, horrifying depiction of the Syrian war. The filmmakers followed the White Helmet volunteers from September 2015 through the fall of 2016, cataloging the harrowing day-to-day of life in Aleppo, and the citizens trying desperately to preserve it.
Grasshopper plans to release the film theatrically in May, followed by a non-theatrical and VOD release. The film will have an exclusive New York run starting May 3 at the Metrograph and May 18 at Laemmle’s Music Hall in Los Angeles, with a nationwide roll-out to follow. The movie has also been acquired for U.S. broadcast by POV, which will air the film later in the year.
The deal was negotiated by Jason Ishikawa of Cinetic International and DR Sales with Ryan Krivoshey for Grasshopper Film.
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