2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Meredith Danluck’s State Like Sleep

An artist who doesn’t stay put, We thought this directorial debut would have receive the green light same time last year, but aside from a status update we know more on where she might be headed next in terms of future projects. We’re still in the mindset that Meredith Danluck would be a good fit for the fest and the project is indeed better prepared. Having attended not one, but three Sundance Institute workshops as a participant in the 2013 Screenwriters, Directors and Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs, she had previously made her docu debut with 2010’s The Ride (SXSW). Danluck presented four-screen film installation “North of South, West of East” in Park City a couple of years back and comes to cinema as both a filmmaker and accomplished artist. State Like Sleep sees Katherine Waterston topline this psychological thriller, which also see includes Luke Evans and Michael Shannon. Production took place in Toronto in the summer of 2016.

Gist: Under the surreal cloud cover of northern Europe, a young American widow reluctantly revisits her past when her mother is hospitalized in Brussels. While coping with the bleak reality of parental loss, Katherine explores her deceased husband’s secret life of underground sex clubs and finds comfort in a relationship with a stranger (Shannon) as equally broken as she is.

Production Co./Producers: Eddie Vaisman (In a World…), Code Red’s Julia Lebedev and Angel Lopez (The Dinner).

Prediction: U.S. Dramatic Comp or even Premieres. A Rotterdam or Berlin showing is also possible.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. ICM Partners (domestic). Fortitude International (international).