Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Riley Stearns’ Dual

Published on November 22, 2021

Riley Stearns headed to the Nordic country for his latest feature. Filmed during the pandemic, the shot in Finland Dual should have had enough time in post-production to be ready for a January drop. The acquisitions title was shot in Tampere with the likes of Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul, Beulah Koale and Jesse Eisenberg (Stearns teamed with the actor for The Art of Self-Defense). Gillian would have gone thru a physical Linda Hamilton type bootcamp for the role. Stearns saw his 2013 short The Cub break into the 2013 edition of Sundance and has moved into features with his first two features (2014’s Faults, 2019’s The Art of Self-Defense) which both premiered at the SXSW Film Fest.

Gist: The story centres on a woman (Gillan) who opts for a cloning procedure after she receives a terminal diagnosis and is court-martialled to a dual to the death when she starts to recover.

Production Co./Producers: Riley Stearns and XYZ Films’ Aram Tertzakian.

Prediction: MIDNIGHT.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. XYZ Films/CAA Media Finance/UTA Independent Film Group (domestic). XYZ Films (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).