This summer specialty weekend is offering a handful of limited releases from Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud to Unicorns by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd, to the latest in the Jujutsu Kaisen series, Drowning Dry co-produced by Flow Academy award-winner Matiss Kaza and a handful of thoughtful docs. It’s a buzzy, busy box office with lots to see from Superman on down. Ari Aster’s Eddington from A24 is wide on 2,000 screens.
Sideshow/Janus Films opens thriller Cloud by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) in NYC at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center. Premiered at Venice, see Deadline review, 92% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Yoshii, an ambitious yet directionless young factory worker from Tokyo, side hustles in the murky realm of black market reselling, cheating buyers and sellers alike. After swindling his way into loads of cash, he becomes slowly disconnected to humanity, moving out of the city, shunning his girlfriend, and hiring a devoted assistant. But after a series of mysterious, sinister incidents occur, he begins to suspect his former victims could be plotting the ultimate revenge. Expands to L.A. and select other markets next week followed by a national rollout through August.
Dekanalog opens Drowning Dry by Laurynas Bareiša (Pilgrims), co-produced by Academy Award-winner Matiss Kaza (Flow) opens at the IFC Center, Q&As with Bareiša moderated by Ryan Lattanzio. Limited rollout to L.A. and other markets through mid-August. Mixed martial arts competitor Lukas has just handily defeated his opponent and celebrates with his wife, child and friends backstage, setting the scene for a nimble combination of communal bonding and looming horrors. A non-linear journey through the experiences and recollections of those who survived tragedy and those who didn’t. The second of Bareiša’s films selected as Lithuania’s entry for the Best International Feature Academy Award and winner of Locarno’s Best Director and Best Performance awards. The New Directors/New Films 2025 selection stars Gelminė Glemžaitė, Agnė Kaktaitė, Giedrius Kiela and Paulius Markevičius.
Cohen Media Group is bringing TIFF 2023-premiering Unicorns by director Sally El Hosaini and actor James Krishna Floyd (Hulu’s No Man’s Land) to the Quad in New York, the Landmark L.A. and arthouses in San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta and Philadelphia. BAFTA-nominated and multiple film festival award-winning El Hosaini’s last film Swimmers was a worldwide hit for Netflix. Unicorns stars Ben Hardy (Bohemian Rhapsody, 6 Underground, X-Men: Apocalypse) as a working class, single dad auto mechanic who has a Crying Game moment after a chance encounter with an alluring British Asian drag queen (recording artist and performer Jason Patel) at an underground club in East London. Screened at BFI London, Palm Springs, London Flare and Dinard British Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize and the Audience Award. Most recently screened as part of the Hollywood Partnership Pride LIVE! events in June.
No Sleep Till by Alexandra Simpson opens at Metrograph in New York. Q&As with writer-director Simpson and producer Tyler Taormina on Fri. and Sat. From Omnes Films collective (Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point) and Factory 25. Premiered at Venice to a Special Jury Mention and screened at Los Angeles Festival of Movies and New Directors/New Films. This visually striking feature is a hypnotic take on a disaster movie and portrait of the inhabitants of a coastal Florida town as they prepare for a hurricane, including a handful of locals who decide to stay despite the evacuation order. The film is fully cast with local actors from Florida who had never acted before.
Fourth Act Film opens Heightened Scrutiny, a documentary by Sam Feder. Follows civil rights attorney Chase Strangio as he battles at the Supreme Court for transgender adolescents’ access to gender-affirming healthcare, confronting not only the legal system but also a media landscape that distorts public perception and threatens the struggle for trans rights. Premiered at Sundance, see Deadline Studio interview with Feder. Screenings this month in New York, L.A. and San Francisco.
GKids released Jujutsu Kaisen: Hidden Inventory / Premature Death – The Movie with special event screenings on Wednesday and Thursday on 1,187 screens in the U.S. and Canada with limited screenings continuing through the weekend on about 350 screens. This theatrical compilation feature returns to the popular Hidden Inventory/Premature Death story arc of the globally acclaimed Jujutsu Kaisen series, which focused on the younger days of fan-favorite characters Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto.
Documentary Life After by Reid Davenport opens at the Film Forum. In 1983, a disabled Californian woman named Elizabeth Bouvia sought the “right to die,” igniting a national debate about autonomy, dignity, and the value of disabled lives. After years of courtroom trials, Bouvia disappeared from public view. Disabled director Davenport narrates this investigation of what happened to Bouvia and her story’s relevance today. Davenport’s exploration brings him to Canada, where safeguards have been lifted to allow disabled people unprecedented access to Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). Here is Davenport on Deadline’s Doc Talk Podcast. From Multitude Films/Independent Lens.
8 Above opens Justin Schein’s Death & Taxes – My Father, Our Family and the Cost of the American Dream at the IFC Center this week and the Laemmle L.A. next with other cities to follow. A doc about family, wealth, inequality and the American Dream viewed through the lens of the estate tax and the very personal story of a father and son at odds over what kind of inheritance we want to leave our kids and our country. Schein’s father, Harvey Schein, liked to say he lived the so-called American Dream – rising from poverty in Depression-era Brooklyn to great financial success as one of America’s top CEOs of the 1970s. But Harvey Schein, who ran the American arm of Sony for many years, also spent the last 20 years of his life fixated on trying to keep his hard-earned wealth from the taxman—an obsession that almost broke the Schein family apart. More broadly, inherited wealth and the tax system that shields it have badly distorted American democracy, perpetuating racial and economic inequity in the country. Filmed over more than 20 years and weaving intimate family footage with interviews with prominent experts from all sides of the debate.
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