Indie Recovery Builds Amid Inflation, Interest Rate Jitters – Specialty Preview

Jill Goldsmith
·6 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

The Forgiven with Jessica Chastain opens in 122 theaters this weekend as the flow of indie films continues to build with well-reviewed, festival-pedigreed product including Mr. Malcolm’s List and Clara Sola. Meanwhile, producers and most other U.S. businesses are hoping economic storm clouds won’t ding their industry’s nascent revival.

“I think we have seen a slow recovery. We are feeling bullish,” said Howard Cohen, co-president of The Forgiven distributor Roadside Attractions. He cited a helpful “knockoff effect” from popular wide releases Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick, where a significant chunk of the audience is an arthouse-friendly 55 and over. He’s talking about moviegoing, a great value for people during economic slowdowns when box office grosses have tended to rise. But down the chain, higher inflation, “while it doesn’t mean movies won’t get made, will affect decision making and things may be more complicated,” said Cohen. Higher interest rates could impact financing.

More from Deadline

Inflation “is a very subtle tax on literally everything,” said Alan McConnell, a producer on Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Clara Sola. The Spanish-language film set in Costa Rica premiered last year at Cannes and opens today via Oscilloscope Laboratories at the IFC Center in New York.

The hope is that inflation may be peaking now, but there’s little visibility. The Russia-Ukraine war has created a spike in energy and food prices in the U.S., where surging demand and lingering Covid-related supply chain disruptions have ballooned the prices of just about everything else. The Federal Reserve is aggressively raising interest rates to cool things down, but that delicate balancing act risks tipping the nation into recession.

“I think a lot of people in the [film] community have our fingers crossed,” said McConnell.

Clara Sola, Mesén’s first feature, stars Wendy Chinchilla Araya, also in a debut performance, as a 40-year-old woman in a remote Costa Rican village enduring a repressively religious, withdrawn life under the command of her mother. Tension rises as Clara’s young niece approaches her quinceañera, igniting a sexual and mystical awakening in Clara and a journey to free herself from the conventions that have dominated her life. Mesén and Maria Camila Arias co-penned the script.

Deadline review here.

Distributors also continue to monitor the landscape in terms of release strategies.

“We are doing wider openings, especially with movie stars,” said Roadside’s Cohen, referring to The Forgiven’s Chastain and co-star Ralph Fiennes. It’s Chastain’s first movie since winning the Best Actress Academy Award for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. “They are doing publicity, all the reviews are coming out so [people may ask], ‘Why is it not coming out in St. Louis? What are you waiting for?’”

It depends on the movie but “I think we are still not as excited about the pure New York and L.A. openings. It seems harder, especially in L.A. with no ArcLight, no Landmark,” he said.

The film is written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. Fiennes and Chastain are wealthy Londoners, David and Jo Henninger, involved in tragic accident with a local teenage boy while speeding through the Moroccan desert to attend an old friend’s lavish weekend party. Arriving late at the grand villa, the couple attempts to cover up the incident with the collusion of the local police. But when the boy’s father arrives seeking justice, the stage is set for a tension-filled culture clash. Deadline’s review from Toronto here.

Bleecker Street is opening Mr. Malcolm’s List wide for specialty on 1,384 screens in the U.S. and Canada, betting on the appeal of the Jane Austen-esque, Bridgerton-esque Regency period drama directed by Emma Holly Jones, based on the novel by Suzanne Allain and loosely inspired by Pride and Prejudice.

When she fails to meet an item on his list of requirements for a bride, Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) is jilted by London’s most eligible bachelor, Mr. Malcolm (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù). Humiliated and determined to exact revenge, she convinces her friend Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto) to play the role of his ideal match. Soon, Mr. Malcolm wonders whether he’s found the perfect woman, or the perfect hoax. Deadline review here.

Sony Pictures Classics presents Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song in New York (Walter Reade, Film Forum) and Los Angeles (Royal). The documentary from Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldine, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Festival, is an exploration of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen as seen through the prism of his internationally renowned hymn “Hallelujah” and weaving together three creative strands: the songwriter and his times; the song’s dramatic journey from record label reject to chart-topping hit; and moving testimonies from major recording artists for whom “Hallelujah” has become a personal touchtone.

Elsewhere in specialty: Greenwich Entertainment presents Accepted in NYC (Quad) and LA (Monica). The feature documentary from The Disunited States of America helmer Dan Chen played at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. It goes inside the high-stakes quest for elite college admissions centering on TM Landry Prep School in Louisiana, which boasted a remarkable 100% college acceptance rate for its ambitious, underprivileged high school students. That was before a New York Times exposé detailing Landry’s methods led the school to buckle under the scrutiny, leaving its students’ fates in limbo.

Well Go UAA Entertainment presents timely Ukrainian action-adventure film Sniper: The White Raven in NYC, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit and Houston. By Marian Bushan, based on a true story. After suffering a senseless tragedy at the hand of invading soldiers in the Donbas region in 2014, a former Ukrainian physics teacher renounces his peaceful way of life and seeks revenge. Upon joining the military and earning a coveted spot as a sniper, he sets his sights on an elite Russian sniper whose elimination could change the tide of the conflict.

And Louis C.K. is playing a new indie film he wrote with comic Joe List. Fourth of July centers on Jeff (List), a recovering alcoholic and jazz pianist in NYC who confronts his acerbic family during their annual Fourth of July vacation. Sarah Tollemache, Paula Plum, Robert Walsh and Robert Kelly also star. It premiered at New York’s Beacon Theater on June 30, with screenings at Boston’s Shubert Theater July 1 and The Vic in Chicago on July 2. Louis C.K.’s website lists about 50 more playdates nationally over the next two weeks, either one day only and some weeklong runs.

 

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.