Festival Predictions

2016 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jeremy Teicher & Alexi Pappas’ Tracktown

Published on November 25, 2015

Some say, write what you know. I guess the idiom here would be to…run with what you know. A project that producer Laura Wagner received support on via SFFS and the Sundance Institute, Tracktown is the sum of a devotion to a sport and a creative collaboration that sprung up at Dartmouth College. Grads Jeremy Teicher and Alexi Pappas combined forces (both personally and professionally) in 2012 on the micro feature Tall as the Baobab Tree, and they are currently in finish line mode with their second creative collaboration. Teicher (featured in Filmmaker Mag’s Top 25 in 2013) co-wrote/directed/produced the project with Pappas who stars an literally borrows from her blistered feet days of the sport. Lensing on Tracktown began back in October of 2014 in Eugene, Oregon and the film also includes players such as newbie Chase Offerle, Rachel Dratch and Andy Buckley.

Gist: This follows Plumb Marigold (Pappas), a distance runner hoping to qualify for the Olympics. As Plumb struggles through her demanding training regimen in the lead-up to the Olympic Trials, she meets Sawyer (Offerle), a local bakery employee. With him, she begins to explore a world—and a city—outside of what she’s always known.

Production Co./Producers: Laura Wagner (It Felt Like Love) and Jay Smith.

Prediction: U.S Dramatic Comp.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (international)

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).