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A pair of moderate releases with a handful of docs and titles in limited release topline an end-of-summer specialty market. Labor Day weekend can be slow and indie openings are up against few new wide releases (Afraid, Reagan) and holdovers from Deadpool & Wolverine to Inside Out 2. Meanwhile, the Venice film festival, with Telluride and TIFF coming soon, is generating indie headlines and the new crop of arthouse films.
Bleecker Street goes the widest under 1,000 screens with Mikael Håfström’s Slingshot, starring Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne, at 840 locations.
This psychological space thriller follows an elite trio of astronauts aboard a years-long, possibly compromised mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut to maintain his grip on reality.
Written by R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker (Moon),
An Astral Pictures production in association with Bluestone Entertainment, Széchenyi Funds Ltd., and Filmsquad. The film was produced by Richard Saperstein, Istvan Major and Beau Turpin.
Well Go USA’s baseball drama You Gotta Believe starring Luke Wilson and Greg Kinnear debuts on 780 screens. The film by Ty Roberts, written by Lane Garrison, is based on a true story of one team’s transformational journey from district underdog to Little League record holder. This group of underestimated youth baseball players from Fort Worth, Texas, dedicating their season to a teammate’s ailing father, runs all the way to the 2002 Little League World Series and a record-breaking showdown that became an instant ESPN classic.
Limited release: Neon debuts documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon, the directorial debut Jazmin Renée Jones, with Olivia McKayla Ross. Opens at IFC Center in New York, in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago Sept. 6 and select additional cities the week after. Premiered at Sundance, see interview with Jones and Ross.
Launched in the late ’80s, educational software Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the program’s Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. Two DIY investigators search for the unsung cultural icon, while questioning notions of digital security, AI, and Black representation in the digital realm. In her directorial debut, Jones’ embraces outspoken questioning. Jones turns the camera onto herself and co-investigator Ross, foregrounding their investigatory process and supportive friendship.
Neon produced alongside award-winning independent filmmaker, teacher, film curator and BelleMoon Productions co-founder Guetty Felin, with Ross serving as co-producer.
Merchant Ivory from Cohen Media Group opens in select markets in New York and LA. The documentary about the cinematic and personal partnership of filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, directed by Stephen Soucy, world premiered at DOC NYC last year. It’s the first definitive feature documentary to lend new and compelling perspectives on the partnership, both professional and personal, of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and their primary associates, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. Footage from more than fifty interviews, clips, and archival material gives voice to the family of actors and technicians who helped define Merchant Ivory’s Academy Award-winning work of consummate quality and intelligence. With six Oscar winners among the notable artists participating, these close and often long-term collaborators intimately detail the transformational cinematic creativity and personal and professional drama of the wandering company that left an indelible impact on film culture.
Film noir parody The Falling Star from Kino Lorber debuts at the Quad in New York this weekend, at LA’s Laemmle Royal Sept. 13. The film by Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon was an official selection of the Telluride and Locarno Film Festivals s the duo (Lost in Paris, The Fairy) filters the language of film noir through their characteristically colorful palette to create a series of deceptively minimalistic set pieces that recall the best of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton.
Abel plays Boris, a former activist hiding from his dark past, keeping in the shadows as a barkeeper until a one-armed vigilante finally hunts him down. The fortuitous appearance of a double – the depressive recluse Dom (also played by Abel) – seems to offer the perfect decoy. But his tenacious and loopy ex-wife, the private eye Fiona (Gordon), could foil their master plan.
Shout! Studios opens The Wasp, Guillem Morales’ adaptation of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play of the same name. Malcolm penned the screenplay. Naomie Harris and Natalie Dormer star as somewhat mentally unstable old friends Heather and Carla, who agree to meet after having not spoken in years. Over tea, Heather presents a very unexpected and disturbing proposition that will change their lives forever.
Premiered at Tribeca, Deadline’s review called it “a taut drama of revenge and childhood scars.” Limited opening ahead of digital release.
Tokyo Cowboy from Purdie Distribution by director Marc Marriott in his feature debut, is out on two screens. Stars Arata Iura as a brash Japanese businessman on an unwitting journey of self-discovery when he takes a company trip from Tokyo to a loss-making Montana cattle ranch to turn it into a premiere asset. Stymied when his Wagyu-beef expert fails him, Hideki is poised to misfire magnificently unless he identifies a missing element.