Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #33. Alma Har’el – Honey Boy

Published on November 21, 2018

A fruitful creative collab that began with a music vid for Sigur Rós and added support for her sophomore film LoveTrue, Alma Har’el and Shia LaBeouf will spike the Park City punch bowl with the conceptually delirious and delicious sounding truer-than-fiction or is this fiction? Honey Boy. A shot in Los Angeles project that went into production in May, the Bombay Beach (read review) helmer had LaBeouf surrounded by Lucas Hedges, FKA Twigs, Noah Jupe, Maika Monroe, Natasha Lyonne, Martin Starr, Laura San Giacomo, Clifton Collins Jr. and partner Byron Bowers.

Gist: Written by Shia LaBeouf, this follows child actor Otis Lort (Hedges) and his law-breaking, alcohol-abusing father James (LaBeouf) as they attempt to mend their contentious relationship over the course of a decade.

Production Co./Producers: Automatik’s Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (I Think We’re Alone Now), Stay Gold Features’ Daniela Taplin Lundberg (The Strange Ones), Delirio Films’ Christopher Leggett (LoveTrue).

Prediction: U.S, Dramatic Comp.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. CAA (domestic). CAA/Endeavor Content (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).