Sundance Debut ‘Starling Girl’ Acquired for International Sales by Architect (EXCLUSIVE)

Manori Ravindran
·2 min read
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New sales agent and financier Architect has come on board to represent international sales on writer-director Laurel Parmet’s Sundance-premiering “The Starling Girl.”

The film was acquired for North America by Bleecker Street in a deal negotiated by UTA and WME, and will release in cinemas later this year. Architect will launch international sales at this week’s European Film Market, which runs alongside the Berlin Film Festival.

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“The Starling Girl” premiered at Sundance to strong reviews, and will screen in the Festival Favourites section at SXSW next month. It stars Eliza Scanlen (“Sharp Objects”), Lewis Pullman (“Top Gun: Maverick”), Jimmi Simpson (“Westworld”), Wrenn Schmidt (“Nope)” and Austin Abrams (“Paper Towns|). The film is produced by Kevin Rowe and Kara Durrett.

The drama follows 17-year-old Jem Starling (Scanlen), who struggles to find her place in the fundamentalist Christian community that raised her. According to the film’s official synopsis, “even her greatest joy — the church dance group — is tempered by worry that her love of dance is actually sinful, and she’s caught between a burgeoning awareness of her own sexuality and an instinctive resistance to her mom’s insistence that the time has come to begin courting. She finds respite from her confusion in the encouragement of her youth pastor Owen (Pullman), who is likewise drawn to the blossoming Jem’s attention.”

Architect combines ex-Embankment execs Calum Gray and Max Pirkis, with Patrick Fischer and Richard Kondal of U.K. financier Creativity Capital.

“It’s our core mission to curate singular movies for the next generations of cinemagoers and consumers, in both authored and commercial spaces,” said Gray. “In ‘The Starling Girl,’ director Laurel Parmet has crafted a wholly contemporary and unique vision of forbidden love and strong young femininity which captivates, pulls at the heart strings and holds a modern audience in its narrative grip. Laurel has a truly compelling voice and Eliza has delivered a career-propelling performance. We are delighted to bring this spellbinding film to audiences worldwide.”

Architect will also launch worldwide sales at EFM on another feature debut, “Lollipop.” As previously reported by Variety, BAFTA Breakthrough, Grierson and BIFA-nominated director Daisy-May Hudson’s film has just wrapped in London. The pic is produced by Olivier Kaempfer and Cecilia Frugiuele of Parkville Pictures (“Polite Society,” “Appropriate Behaviour”) and financed by BBC Film and the BFI.

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