New Orleans Film Festival Books ‘Green Book’; Screen Media Acquires ‘Luz’; Chien-Ming Wang Docu To Passion River – Film Briefs
Green Book, coming off its People’s Choice win at the Toronto Film Festival, has been set as the opening-night film of the New Orleans Film Festival, which runs October 17-25. Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen star in the pic directed by Peter Farrelly and based on accounts of a real-life tour by pianist Don Shirley and driver-bodyguard Tony Lip through the American South in the 1960s. The movie, which bows in theaters November 21 via Universal, was shot on location in Louisiana. The fest also set Steve McQueen’s upcoming Widows as a Centerpiece Film and Paul Dano’s Wildlife in the Spotlight section.
Screen Media has acquired North American rights to Tilman Singer’s horror thriller Luz, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year. The news comes ahead of the film’s U.S. premiere this week at Fantastic Fest, and a first-quarter 2019 theatrical release is planned. The pic centers on a young cab driver (Luana Velis) who drags herself into the brightly lit entrance of a run-down police station. A demonic entity follows her, determined to finally be close to the woman it loves. Singer wrote and made his directorial debut on the film, which he produced with Dario Mendez Acosta. Jan Bluthardt also stars. Here’s a teaser:
Passion River Films has acquired North American rights to Late Life: The Chien-Ming Wang Story, about the New York Yankees’ first Taiwan-born pitcher. The film will hit theaters in New York on October 26 followed by a select rollout. Directed by Frank W. Chen, the pic centers on the latter years of Wang’s pro baseball career and his comeback attempts from injury after winning 19 games in two consecutive seasons and finishing second in the American League Cy Young Award voting in 2006. It premiered in May at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and is getting a theatrical release in Taiwan in December.
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