Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated American Indie Films of 2018: #82. Matthew Ross’ Siberia

Published on January 15, 2018

Siberia

Matthew Ross didn’t waste much time putting his sophomore film in place, after debuting 2016’s Frank & Lola at Sundance (read review) he tapped Keanu Reeves for Siberia, a follow up that appears to once again make different genres into ideal bed partners. Deemed a romantic thriller, production began in April on location in St Petersburg, Russia and Winnipeg, Canada.

Based on a story Stephen Hamel and a screenplay by Scott B. Smith, starring Reeves, Molly Ringwald, Aleks Paunovic, Pasha D. Lychnikoff and Ana Ularu, this follows Lucas (Reeves), an American diamond merchant, who travels to Russia to sell rare blue diamonds of questionable origin. As the deal begins to collapse, he falls into an obsessive relationship with Katya (Ularu), a Russian cafe owner, in a small Siberian town. Ross reteams with cinematographer Eric Koretz and composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans.

Release Date/Prediction: With post-production being just completed in December, this will likely tempt film fest programmers around the summer mark. TIFF is a strong possibility.

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).