Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #4. Benedict Andrews – Against All Enemies

Published on November 20, 2018

After making his debut entrance with Una (read our review), Australian theatre and filmmaker Benedict Andrews didn’t waste much time moving directly into his sophomore gig with the rather lofty project of Against All Enemies – which went into production May of this year. Andrews reteams with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof play point person Jack O’Connell, with Kristen Stewart taking on big screen duties of the iconic Jean Seberg. Zazie Beetz, Vince Vaughn, Margaret Qualley, Stephen Root, Anthony Mackie and Colm Meaney complete the cast. Mudbound‘s Rachel Morrison was onboard for cinematography duties.

Gist: Based on the screenplay by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, this centers on an ambitious young F.B.I. Agent named Jack Solomon (O’Connell) and the attempts by the FBI to discredit iconic actress Jean Seberg (Stewart) through its Cointelpro program in retaliation for her support of the Black Panther Party. Those efforts included creating a false story in 1970 that the child Seberg was carrying was not fathered by her husband, but by a member of the Black Panther Party. Mackie will portray a civil rights activist. Vaughn will play Carl Kowalski, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation.

Production Co./Producers: Automatik’s Fred Berger and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Metalwork Pictures’ Kate Garwood and Stephen Hopkins, Marina Acton, Bradley Pilz and Alan Ritchson.

Prediction: Acquisitions friendly Premieres category or they’ll wait for TIFF and Telluride as they did with Una.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. UTA (domestic). Memento Films Intl. (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).