Sundance: New Buena Vista Social Club Documentary Pulled From Lineup
By Brent Lang, Variety
The ‘Untitled Buena Vista Social Club Documentary’ will not premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, robbing the mountainside indie film gathering of one of its higher-profile debuts. Broad Green, the film’s distributor, attributed the last minute decision to pull the film to the need to make more post-production tweaks. It was originally slated to have its first public screenings on Friday, but Festival organizers said that they were informed Thursday that the picture would not be shown.
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“We at Broad Green are disappointed that we will not be able to premiere this compelling documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival,” a spokesperson for Broad Green said in a statement. “The film’s post production process has taken longer than expected and thus the decision was made to wait to introduce the film to audiences until it can be presented in its best possible iteration.”
The film is a sequel of sorts to 1999’s The Buena Vista Social Club. It also examines Cuba’s musical scene. Lucy Walker (The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom) directs the film, taking over for Wim Wenders, the filmmaker behind the original.
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Broad Green, a relative newcomer to the indie world, has struggled in its initial years. The studio scored with A Walk in the Woods, a 2015 Sundance release, but struck out on the likes of The Infiltrator, Bad Santa 2, and 99 Homes.
Screenings of the musical documentary will be replaced by other films in the lineup, festival organizers said.
‘Buena Vista Social Club’: Watch a trailer for the 1999 film:
