Yahoo News Richard E. Grant In ‘The Lesson’, Mark Duplass In ‘Biosphere’ & Their First-Time Female Directors – Specialty Preview
A sci-fi comedy by Mel Eslyn and a literary noir by Alice Troughton – who are, respectively, the longtime producer for the Duplass brothers and an award-winning UK television director (Doctor Who, Cucumber, The Living and the Dead) — debut in limited release this weekend, alongside Adele Lim’s Joy Ride, a Lionsgate wide-release – marking first-time feature film debuts by three women.
(Noting that Chelsea Peretti’s recent Tribeca-premiering film First Time Female Director sort of re-coined that phrase.)
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Troughton called it “really reassuring” to see female helmers opening films. In the UK “we are below 20% of the directing force and … directorial women’s roles are dropping, as are roles for people of color. So the diversity is sort of slacking off a bit after a really good push. So it felt really important as somebody who had the privilege to be in the position to go and make a film, to go and do it. And also to just have joyous fun with it,” through years of indie-hard development leading to a 22-day shoot in June 2022. The film premiered at the Tribeca Festival. Deadline’s review says it might give star Richard E. Grant the kind of late-career bump that last year’s Living afforded Bill Nighy.
Bleecker Street is opening the film, written by Alex MacKeith, in about 225 theaters.
Grant plays a narcissistic writer. Julie Delpy is his enigmatic curator wife, and Daryl McCormack plays an ambitious young author brought to their isolated country estate to tutor the couple’s son (Stephen McMillan) who becomes ensnared in a web of family secrets, resentment and retribution.
“I just like doing genre. … I’ve done sci-fi, I’ve done Westerns. And now this is kind of noirish,” said Troughton, who added that her second film project is lined up and will be announced soon.
IFC Film’s Biosphere is the directorial debut of prolific producer Mel Eslyn, president of Mark and Jay Duplass’ production company, Duplass Brothers Productions. Written by Mark Duplass and Eslyn, it premiered in Toronto. Set in the not-too-distant future, Biosphere follows Billy (Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown), lifelong best friends who also happen to be the last two men on Earth. They survive thanks to Ray, a brilliant scientist who designed the custom, apartment-size biosphere they call home, outfitting it with creature comforts and the necessities to sustain life on a doomed planet. But when the population of their fishpond — which supplies essential protein — begins waning, the men find themselves facing an ominous future.
The kernel of the idea came from Mark Duplass years ago, Eslyn said. “The last two men on Earth, and they run out of food … and there were a few other things, I think he was tending down the path we ultimately ended up at but couldn’t fully see the way there. And I think there were a lot of things I could bring to the table as a woman. And as a woman, and a queer woman, with a unique and different perspective. I kind of just felt it in my gut and was like, let me run with it.
“I saw an opportunity, with the last two men on Earth, to really analyze toxic masculinity. Why two men? Two men who are straight. And why are they the ones who get left? It sort of seems like, it’s so typical, and I wanted to examine that and push them into places you don’t normally see a buddy comedy go.”
Other specialty openings: Magnolia Pictures presents documentary The League by Samuel D. Pollard in a one-week theatrical window exclusively with AMC in 50 markets. The story of Negro League baseball’s triumphs and challenges in the first half of the 20th century told through archival footage and interviews with legendary players like Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neil, whose early careers paved the way for the Jackie Robinson era, as well as Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. From entrepreneurial titans Cumberland Posey and Gus Greenlee to Effa Manley, the activist owner of the Newark Eagles and the only woman ever admitted to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the film explores Black baseball as an economic and social pillar of Black communities, a stage for some of the greatest athletes ever and unintended consequences of integration.
Oscilloscope opens Carolina Cavalli’s debut feature from Italy, Amanda, at IFC Center in NY and the Laemmle Royal in L.A. Premiered in Venice, see Deadline review. Amanda (Benedetta Porcaroli) is a young woman born into an upper-class family with a doting mother, who foots the bill for her indolent lifestyle. The combative 24-year-old longs for connection and may have discovered it in a long-lost childhood bond.
A24’s Sundance-premiering Earth Mama by former Olympic volleyball player Savanah Leaf opens at the Roxie in San Francisco. Stars Tia Nomore as Gia, an adoring young mother fighting for her children. Her son and daughter are in foster care and her unborn child also could be taken away as she struggles with court-mandated classes and working enough hours to make ends meet. Opened New Directors/New Films in NYC in April.
Yellow Veil Pictures and Drafthouse Films present Cathryne Czubek’s documentary Once Upon a Time in Uganda at Alamo Manhattan, DTLA and a handful of the exhibitor’s other theaters with a limited coming. A look behind the scenes of filmmaking in “Wakaliwood” in the heart of Uganda, where two unlikely friends from opposite sides of the world unite over their shared love of Chuck Norris and gonzo ’80s action flicks and team up to create their own explosive movies.
Drafthouse Films also is opening Alex Winter’s documentary The YouTube Effect at Alamo Drafthouse cinemas in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Austin, Chicago and San Francisco. The film, which premiered at Tribeca 2022, follows YouTube’s rise from humble beginnings in the attic of a pizzeria to its explosion onto the world stage, becoming the largest media platform in history and sparking a cultural revolution and controversy in the age of disinformation.
CMC Pictures opens thriller Lost in the Stars, a blockbuster in China, starring Janice Man, Ni Ni, Yilong Zhu, in limited release. Directed by Rui Cui and Xiang Liu. A woman mysteriously disappears, then reappears while on vacation with her husband.
Music notes: Trafalgar Releasing presents ODESZA: The Last Goodbye Cinematic Experience by Sean Kusanagi Friday on 500+ U.S. theaters and 39 in Canada.
Unbranded Events presents The 50th Anniversary of Lynyrd Skynyrd on their last concert with founding member Gary Rossington, taped last year. Rossington died of cancer in March. A weeklong limited run starts Saturday.
Sunday, Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture 50th Anniversary.
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