Roadside Attractions is out with Sight & Sound’s latest, A Great Awakening, by Joshu Anck, on 180 screens. Timed to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — a yearlong celebration — and hitting on Easter, the true story of an unlikely friendship between Benjamin Franklin (John Paul Sneed) and the Reverend George Whitefield (Jonanthan Blain) is set in the years leading up to independence. Whitefield, one of the most influential public figures of the 18th century, and printer, thinker and founding father Franklin formed a bond rooted in shared concern for the future of the colonies. A collaboration of revival sermons and printing presses helped unify disparate communities.
Sight & Sound is a highly successful live theater company with stages in Lancaster, Pa. and Branson, Mo. that puts on faith-based musicals to sellout crowds. Noah Live!, the film capture of a Bible show, was released through Fathom last fall. Its first pure theatrical film, 2002’s I Heard The Bells, was based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day).
Music Box Film’s The Stranger directed by François Ozon based on the novel by Albert Camus opens in NYC at Film at Lincoln Center and Angelika Film Center. Expands to LA, San Francisco, Washington DC, Portland, Indianapolis and Baltimore next weekend. Premiered at Venice, see Deadline review.
The slim 1942 novel, a literary classic, has rarely been explored on the big screen. It’s a first-person narration by troubled Mersault (Benjamin Voisin), a Frenchman living in Algiers who moves indifferently from his mother’s funeral to killing a man called “The Arab” on the beach. Ozon’s black-and-white version sticks closely to the story but dispenses with much of the narration to focus on the sensual streets of colonial Algeria. Music Box’s 7th outing with Ozon was the Opening Night Film of Lincoln Center’s Rendez Vous with French Cinema last month.
Dekanalog is out with Gabriel Mascaro’s dystopian Berlin Jury prize-winner and Brazilian box office hit The Blue Trail at the Angelika in NY (with Mascaro Q&As) and the Nuart in LA with a national expansion to follow. Denise Weinberg starts as Tereza, a woman who refuses to go quietly when her times comes in a society where a repressive state ships people off to a Colony when they reach 77. With Miriam Socarrás and Rodrigo Santoro. At 100% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes (off 31 reviews — see Deadline’s here).
Living The Land from Film Movement, a coming-of-age drama of provincial life in industrializing 1990s China told from the point of view of a ten-year old boy, debuts at the Film Forum in NYC.
Huo Meng’s sophomore outing (after Crossing the Border: Zhaoguan) won the Silver Bear for Best Director at its Berlin premiere (see Deadline review). The parents of young Chuang (Wang Shang) head for jobs in the city leaving him with extended family in his mother’s village, a wheat-farming village set against the backdrop of China’s transformation into a global industrial powerhouse. “You can practically smell the earth in the swaying fields, and the camera gives a dynamic feel for the gatherings and bustling byways of their small community,” says Deadline’s review.
Georgi M. Unkovski’s Sundance-premiering feature debut DJ Ahmet, opens at IFC Center in New York and Vidiots in Los Angeles via Ink Films, adding markets nationwide through the spring and summer. Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award and the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision in Park City, it follows Ahmet (Arif Jakup), a 15-year-old shepherd from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia. He finds refuge in electronic music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else.
Jimmy & The Demons by Cindy Meehl, celebrates the late renowned sculptor James Grashow as he embarks on his magnum opus at age 79. Produced by Elizabeth Westrate. No distributor yet but opens in NYC at the Quad Cinema and will screen in additional cities into May. The artist, whose work spans massive cardboard installations, illustrations for the New York Times and a Jethro Tull album cover — was commissioned by a long-time patron, Grashow dedicates four years to creating The Cathedral, a five-foot wooden sculpture depicting Christ bearing the weight of a Renaissance-era cathedral on his back while demons claw him from below. Featuring Grashow and his wife Guzzy Grashow. Premiered at Tribeca Festival 2025. Grashow passed away in September at 83.
More to come
