Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.’s Wild Indian

Published on November 26, 2020

His short film Shinaab was featured at the 2017 edition of Sundance (he also received some TLC from TIFF not once, but twice) and he quickly parlayed this with stints at the 2017 Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab and 2018 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Along with grants and fellowships from the Sundance Institute, McKnight Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.’s Wild Indian got further more traction with the addition of Jesse Eisenberg. A thriller that also includes the likes of Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer, Kate Bosworth and Scott Haze, filming took place in Oklahoma City in December of 2019. Here is a great profile on Corbine Jr. and the project.

Gist: This follows two Anishinaabe men who are inextricably bound together after covering up the savage murder of a schoolmate. After years of separation following wildly divergent paths, they must finally confront how their traumatic secret has irrevocably shaped their lives. Greyeyes plays a character who has left the reservation to become an accounting executive while Eisenberg plays his right-hand man and only ally in work and life.

Production Co./Producers: Blake Pickens and Thomas Mahoney.

Prediction: U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. 30West and Endeavor Content (Domestic). Pulsar 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).