Festival Predictions

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jonathan & Josh Baker’s Kin

Published on November 15, 2017

Prediction: James Franco will be at Sundance. The question is which of the two dozen projects in post-production is most likely to show up? My money is on this directorial debut from Jonathan & Josh Baker. They had their 2014 short Bag Man premiere at SXSW and then the Aussie, New York based brothers and commercial director team parlayed that the short into a workable feature project which went into production in September of 2016 in Toronto. Kin stars Franco, Zoe Kravitz, Jack Reynor, and Dennis Quaid in a sci-fi actioner with Mogwai on board to score. Swiss Army Man‘s Larkin Seiple is the dp.

Gist: Written by Daniel Casey and Baker bros., based on their short film “Bag Man”, Jack Reynor will portray a recently released ex-con who, along with his adopted younger brother, is forced to go on the run, chased by a vengeful criminal played by Franco. Quaid will play the brothers’ father and Kravitz joins the brothers’ journey as a trusted ally.

Production Co./Producers: 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen (Table 19), No Trace Camping‘s Jeff Arkuss, David Gross, Jesse Shapira (Room)

Prediction: Park City at Midnight, or SXSW.

U.S. Distributor: Lionsgate. WME Global / Good Universe (international)

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).