Festival Predictions

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Eva Vives’ All About Nina

Published on November 14, 2017

Every year there are the last minute additions getting in under the wire, this might be the case for Eva Vives‘ directorial debut. Receiving a late summer start, All About Nina might be in the mix for a spot in the competition category with a print that is still wet. As we reported here, this stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Common and was filmed in NYC late summer. Vives’ history with the fest dates back to winning Best Short Prize for Five Feet High and Rising (2000) which became the template film for Raising Victor Vargas, and then she fast-forwarded to a participation in both the 2016 Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters and Directors Labs. Her last short Join the Club was featured among the short collection for 2016.

Gist: Written Vives, this follows Nina Geld (Winstead), a bracingly funny and blisteringly provocative stand-up comedian whose career is taking off, but whose personal life is a near-complete disaster. To escape a difficult ex and to prepare for a prospectively life-changing audition, Nina flees to Los Angeles where she meets Rafe (Common), who challenges almost every preconception she has — including those around her own deeply troubled past.

Production Co./Producers: Diablo Entertainment’s Sean Tabibian (Sleight), Natalie Qasabian, Eric B. Fleischman, Eva Vives.

Prediction: The bullseye would be on the U.S. Dramatic Competition.

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

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).