Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated American Indie Films of 2018: #35. Sara Colangelo’s The Kindergarten Teacher

Published on January 17, 2018

The Kindergarten Teacher

Conceptually speaking, Sara Colangelo’s Little Accidents was raw, tonally sound but perhaps lacked a little finesse. I often think about that film in today’s political context – who are the people who voted for Trump? For her sophomore film, she borrows from a text that was imbued with a different political atmosphere (we reviewed Nadav Lapid’s original back in Cannes (read review). The Kindergarten Teacher becomes Maggie Gyllenhaal first credit as a producer.

When a Staten Island kindergarten teacher discovers what may be a gifted five year-old student in her class, she becomes fascinated and obsessed with the child– spiraling downward on a dangerous and desperate path in order to nurture his talent. Maggie Gyllenhaal is in the pole position here. We’re curious to see how the two versions measure up and are betting that the film universe might be better off with the pair.

Release Date/Prediction: This was selected for the U.S Dramatic Comp section.

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).