Megan Griffiths’ Sadie for independent release
Filmmaker Megan Griffiths has
announced that she and producers Lacey Leavitt and Jennessa West will
independently release her acclaimed drama, Sadie.
Working with creative
distribution strategist Mia Bruno, the film will begin its rollout in New York
and Los Angeles on October 12.
Winner of the Gryphon Jury Award
at the 2018 Giffoni Film Festival in Italy, Sadie
premiered at SXSW in March and features a breakout turn by newcomer Sophia
Mitri Schloss in the title role. Melanie Lynskey, John Gallagher Jr., Tony
Hale, Danielle Books and Keith L. Williams co-star, and the film features a
score by Pearl Jam's Mike McCready.
Walking away from more
traditional distribution deals, Griffiths and company chose to pursue their own
creative distribution model to ensure that Sadie
would be released with specificity and care and that no stone would be left
unturned in efforts to connect with communities and reach an audience.
They will build a theatrical and
TVOD release to lead into their Amazon SVOD release, which they opted into as
part of the Amazon Festival Stars program.
In an attempt to benefit other
filmmakers by de-mystifying independent film distribution, the filmmaking team
plans to be fully transparent about their experiences, including an ongoing
blog on the subject hosted on the film's official site, SadieFilm.com
“This film is incredibly
meaningful to me, and it's been so empowering to create a strategy that will
allow us to connect more directly with our audience and engage on the film's
themes around youth and violence,” said Griffiths. “Sadie was made to start a conversation, and the larger the
audience, the more powerful that conversation can be.”
Sadie was written and directed by Griffiths, director of film
festival hits Lucky Them (Toronto
2013, starring Toni Collette and Johnny Depp), Eden (winner of the 2012 SXSW Audience Award), and The Off Hours (Sundance 2011).
She’s also an established
television director, helming episodes of Animal
Kingdom, Graves, and Room 104
(for which she was nominated for a GLAAD Award). She is currently in
development on a project with Philip Fleishman and Steven Soderbergh.
Sadie was produced by Leavitt and West, co-produced by Jonathan
Caso and executive produced by Eliza Shelden. The project was supported by the
Sundance Institute (Creative Producing Lab) and IFP (No Borders/IFP Week).
Variety said in their
review: "Equal parts coming-of-age story and slow-burn thriller, writer-director
Megan Griffiths’ quietly absorbing and methodically disquieting drama is a
genuine rarity."
Sadie is the powerful, unsettling and darkly funny story of a young
girl (Sophia Mitri Schloss) who will stop at nothing to preserve her father's
place on the home front. Sadie is the daughter of a soldier and she models
herself after his military example. When her mom, Rae (Melanie Lynskey), begins
dating a new man, Cyrus (John Gallagher Jr.), Sadie vows to come between them,
whatever it takes.
Cyrus becomes the enemy, and if
she’s learned anything from the world she inhabits, it’s that the enemy
deserves no mercy.
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