Festival Predictions

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Debra Granik’s My Abandonment

Published on November 15, 2017

We likened her to Kelly Reichardt with a cinema that should sprout internationally and so we were genuinely surprised when she didn’t drop into this past Venice Film Festival. Not that she has a history with the Lido, but it would have been nice to have seen this type of Americana premiere within a competitive category. This only means that Debra Granik will likely be back in Park City, making it three for three for fiction films (her docu Stray Dog dropped in the fest circuit in 2014). Winner of the Directing Award Dramatic and Special Jury Prize for Vera Farmiga for Down to the Bone in (2004), and winner of the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Winter’s Bone (2010), this originally had Casey Affleck in the lead, but Ben Foster might be a better casting bet for a survivalist protective father with a complicated past and will be a perfect spotlight to launch a new career for the young co-lead kiwi thesp Thomasin McKenzie. My Abandonment was shot this past April/May in Portland, Oregon and saw Granik re-team with her regular dp in Michael McDonough and had one of our favorite American indie producer in Chad Keith on board as well. Look for a text that is boldly incubated, a backdrop that adds layers to inner friendly and sincere

Gist: Adapted by Granik and Anne Rosellini from author Peter Rock’s novel of the same name. The story follows 13-year-old Caroline (Thomasin McKenzie) and her father, Will (Foster), who are found living in Forest Park, a temperate rainforest abutting Portland, Oregon. When authorities pluck them from their hidden world, where they lived peacefully and practically, Caroline and Will must embark on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.

Production Co./Producers: Harrison Productions’s Anne Harrison (The Danish Girl), Reisman Productions’ Linda Reisman (The Danish Girl), Still Rolling Productions’ Anne Rosellini (Winter’s Bone).

Prediction: U.S. Dramatic Comp might be a long shot, Premieres section looks more logical.

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).