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There’s Still Money to Be Made at Sundance — Or So Producers Hope


Despite fires, strikes, and pandemic hangover, the people hoping to sell films at Sundance are, nonetheless, bullish on indie filmdom.

Toward that end, Jesse Eisenberg’s awards season contender A Real Pain(nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar Thursday morning) and art-house dark horse A Different Man(Best Makeup and Hairstyling), in addition to the Best Feature Documentary nominees Sugarcane, Black Box Diaries, Porcelain War and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat all got their start at Sundance ‘24. That’s part of the calculus behind producers David Siegel and Scott McGehee repeatedly taking their films to the festival since 1994 and aiming to land placement this year for their Gulf War-adjacent crisis-actor comedy Atropia, whose ensemble cast includes Alia Shawcat, Callum Turner, Chloe Sevigny and Channing Tatum. Longtime industry pass holder Kevin Iwashina hits Park City this week with the Glenn Kaino-directed short film he produced, Hoops, Hopes & Dreams — it unpacks an unconventional political strategy by Martin Luther King Jr. and an all-star team of ’60s civil rights activists who used pick-up basketball to rally young voters and build networks of empowerment for disenfranchised communities.

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