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Acquisitions – Indie Films

Rock out with Your C*cks Out; XLrator Books Punk Rock Homage “CBGB” for October

The genre, mostly direct-to-vid label XLrator Media have made perhaps their most noteworthy purchase yet picking up the U.S. distribution rights to Randall Miller’s CBGB. While the distrib has set up an October release to coincide with the CBGB Music Festival, there hasn’t been any mention of where this might be unveiled in terms of a film fest premiere.

Gist: CBGB follows the story of Hilly Kristal’s New York club from its origins as Country, Bluegrass and Blues (CBGB) to what it ultimately became: the birthplace of underground rock ‘n roll and punk. Kristal, a fan of Country and Bluegrass dreamed of having a club in the lower Eastside that catered to that kind of music, when he had difficulty booking those bands he turned to other kinds of rock music. Hilly had one demand of the acts he booked, they could only play their own original music. No top 40’s, no covers. It was the credo he lived by, support the artist at whatever the cost. Here’s the character/musician set of poster one sheets introduced not to far back.

Worth Noting: Potential musical clearance nightmare, the film features over 60 classic songs – filled to the gills with American Punk Rock tunes including The Ramones, Blondie, The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth.

Do We Care?: Having missed out on Sundance, SXSW and Tribeca, we’re already in “skip it” mode – though Miller does have My Cross To Bear in the works. Production on that begins this summer.

 

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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