The independent front is quiet. Ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony on March 2, which will conclude the 2024 season, Oscar candidates remain in theaters. Tomorrow, the Indie Spirits will unwind. Along with Sundance last month and SXSW next, the Berlinale is sowing the seeds of the film industry’s next generation of independents with prizes to be given out on Sunday.
With a broad distribution, Neon’s horror film The Monkey seems to be reaching new heights.Anora continues to appear on screens. The Brutalist on A24 is still airing.
Oscilloscope’s relative newcomer Universal Language, starring Matthew Rankin, has expanded from two screens to 24 screens, including runs in the New York and Los Angeles region, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin. In its first week of release, the Cannes audience prize winner brought in $51,000 at two theaters.
Beth Lane, a debut filmmaker, screened the documentary UnBroken on demand and at the Laemmle Town Center in Los Angeles and the Quad in New York City. After their mother was imprisoned and killed at Auschwitz, seven siblings managed to escape Nazi Germany and avoid being captured and killed. The children—Alfons, Senta, Ruth, Gertrude, Renee, Judith, and Bela Weber—spent two years alone in war-torn Germany after being concealed by a kind farmer. Bela, the youngest sibling, is the mother of the director.
The children battle through hunger, loneliness, rape, bombardment, and dread, strengthened by their father’s insistence that they remain together. However, a heartbreaking ultimatum marks the end of their voyage. They are advised that in order to flee to America and start again, they must consider themselves orphans after being split off from their father. They would not be reunited for another 40 years when this salvation ultimately tore them apart.
After winning Best Premiere Documentary Feature at the 2023 Heartland Film Festival, it screened at Doc NYC and other U.S. film festivals. At the Berkshire International Film Festival in Massachusetts, the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival in Iowa, and the RiverRun International Film Festival in North Carolina, it took home audience awards.
The Quiet Ones, an action thriller that is a TIFF favorite, is being released by Magnolia Pictures/Magnet on demand and on 17 screens, including the IFC Center in New York City and the Laemmle LA. This is the narrative of the largest and most spectacular theft in Danish history, and the intricate preparations made by a group of determined and ambitious criminals to carry it out. It is based on true events. In 2008, its overseas organizers provide Kasper, a boxer with little chance left in life, the chance to organize the heist. He accepts the challenge in an attempt to shatter all records, even if it means losing his family and everything he values. Written by Anders Frithiof August and directed by Frederik Louis Hviid. starring Amanda Collin, Reda Kateb, and Gustav Giese.
Mickey Keating’s home invasion horror film Invader is released by Doppelgänger Releasing, a genre label owned by Music Box Films. Joe Swanberg is the producer. After arriving in the Chicago suburbs, a young woman suspects that her missing cousin has suffered a dreadful fate, but she quickly learns that her worst suspicions are not even close to the truth. stars Colin Huerta and Vero Maynez.
It opens on six screens, including the Music Box in Chicago and the Alamo Drafthouse theaters in lower Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Austin.
