New York indies Cartuna and Dweck Productions have acquired North American rights for Grace Glowicki’s thriller Useless Lover as the primary acquisition of their newly introduced joint distribution enterprise Cartuna x Dweck.
The companions acquired the movie out of SXSW the place the Canadian thriller made its Texas debut after world premiering at Sundance within the Midnight Part.
In between occasions, the movie has additionally performed the Worldwide Movie Competition Rotterdam and Göteborg Movie Competition, with forthcoming stops on the Overlook Movie Competition in New Orleans and the Los Angeles Competition of Films.
Glowicki additionally stars in Useless Lover as a lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses. When she lastly meets her dream man (Ben Petrie), their whirlwind affair is lower quick when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him by madcap scientific experiments, leading to grave penalties and unlikely love.
Useless Lover is Glowicki’s second directorial function credit score after 2019 drama Tito by which a terrified man on the run from sexual predators takes refuge in an deserted home the place he’s disturbed by a cheerful neighbor, performed by Petrie.
Cartuna launched its movie distribution arm final yr with a concentrate on animation, DIY, and cult cinema. It started as a Blu-ray label, most notably for the bodily launch of the runaway indie-hit A whole lot of Beavers, which had a busy month each surpassing $1 million within the worldwide field workplace and 10,000 Blu-ray discs bought.
Useless Lover marks the primary all-rights acquisition for the corporate and the beginning of a newly minted partnership with Dweck Productions. The shall be give the movie a theatrical launch. A date has but to be set.
Kurt Ravenwood, Companion of boutique advert company and indie manufacturing studio SRH and producer of A whole lot of Beavers, will be a part of the discharge to supply advertising and marketing technique for the movie.
“We firmly imagine that we’re on the early levels of a historic artistic motion,” says James Belfer, founder and CEO of Cartuna.
“Ingenious, boundary-pushing storytellers want extra distribution assist now than ever. This collective of producers has opted to take issues into our personal arms and it’s our honest hope that it’s going to encourage others to do the identical.”
Hannah Dweck, proprietor and co-founder of Dweck Productions alongside Theodore Schaefer, added: “What Grace and her collaborators have dug up from their artistic depths is like nothing I’ve ever seen earlier than and we’re so honored to be part of this infinitely imaginative workforce. We are able to’t wait to set this exuberantly unrestrained, disgusting, lovely, smelly, exhumed corpse of a rom-com unfastened on the world.”
Current credit for Dweck Productions, which produces and funds, embody Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve In Miller’s Level (IFC Movies), Joel Potrykus’s Vulcanizadora (Oscilloscope), Dustin Man Defa’s The Adults (Common), and Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going To The World’s Honest (Utopia/HBO).
Glowicki’s first breakout got here together with her efficiency in Petrie’s 2016 quick Her Good friend Adam, which earned her a Particular Jury Award for Excellent Efficiency from the Sundance Movie Competition.
She and Petrie co-wrote the screenplay for Useless Lover. They’re joined within the forged by Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow.
The film is produced by Glowicki, Petrie, and Yona Strauss. Matthew Miller, Olivia Nieuwland, Lexi Tannenholtz, Rhianon Jones and Tristan Scott Behrends of Neon Coronary heart Productions function Govt Producers.
“We really feel touched by kismet to be working with Cartuna X Dweck. Individually, each corporations are stalwart champions of unbiased voices in cinema, and we’re in love with their imaginative and prescient for a united superfront placing out films with a recent, individualized method. Ben, Yona, and I are thrilled to be placing our brains along with them on rolling out Useless Lover,“ mentioned Glowicki.
Cartuna has quietly been assembling a slate of movies for distribution with forthcoming titles to be introduced later this yr.
The deal was negotiated by Hugues Barbier, Justin Timms, and Joe Yanick of Yellow Veil Photos on behalf of the filmmakers and James Belfer on behalf of Cartuna x Dweck.
