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Acquisitions – Documentary Films

Drafthouse Loves Thy Neighbor; Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters Finds Distrib Housing

After taking The Act of Killing to the bank, Drafthouse’s Tim League smells another docu winner. A full two months after its premiere in Park City (it has subsequently been shown at True/False, Full Frame, Dallas and upcoming fests Hot Docs and Tribeca) TheWrap reports that Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters has been picked up and is being pegged with an awards-friendly year-end 2014 release. A portion of all box office receipts will be donated to local affordable housing charities.

Gist: Desperate, broken men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor risks everything to help them.

Worth Noting: This won a Special Jury Award for Intuitive Filmmaking at Sundance.

Do We Care?: Topping the almost 20 doc items that our docu-specialist Jordan M. Smith caught at Sundance, The Overnighters will likely be included among several year-end lists. Jordan mentions that Moss once again spins “an ethically complex yarn, broad in its thematic ambitions, yet auspiciously concise in its narrative scope.”

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).

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