2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy

We’ve kept our ears peeled to the ground and eyes glued since non-trade related film news began to trickle in 2013, but for the most part, we’ve been left with tiny fragments of what amounts to sasquatch sitings. This should all change in 2018. Many have been jonesing for whatever world Benh Zeitlin decides to present next: will it be a Lord of the Flies meets fantastical Benjamin Button elements or should we expect Gondry-esque gold dust? Zeitlin hasn’t been inactive since 2012, he composed the music for Jonas Carpignano’s Mediterranea and Viktor Jakovleski’s Brimstone & Glory. In 2018, we’ll be accessing Wendy, a sophomore project filmed in exoticism bliss of Antigua and its surroundings. We do know that unknowns Devin France, Yashua Mack, Gage Naquin, Gavin Naquin and Romyri Ross are the diminutive larger than life figures to populate this film which we expect to be an amusement park ride la Beasts of the Southern Wild. After seeing how we can access smaller worlds a la Sean Baker’s The Florida Project, with trepidation, we await to see where this film will premiere.

Gist: A young girl is kidnapped and taken to a hidden ecosystem where a tribal war is raging over a form of pollen that breaks the relationship between aging and time.

Production Co./Producers: Court13.

Prediction: Perhaps the most anticipated sales title for the Premieres section, or if Thierry Fremaux fancies the title, it’ll be locked for the Main Comp at the Cannes Film Festival.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (international)