Festival Predictions

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy

Published on November 15, 2017

Assuredly becoming a hot ticket director with the launch of 2010’s Beyond the Black Rainbow – a debut film we called “a nightmarish world that’s aggravating, hypnotic, and original,” Canuck Panos Cosmatos (a 25 featured Filmmaker Magazine folk) paced himself and took his time in selecting his sophomore effort. An action-thriller that shot this past summer in Belgium, the sphinx-like Nicolas Cage appears to have his rage game on in Mandy. Andrea Riseborough and Linus Roache also star, while the great Johann Johannsson signed onto score the pic.

Gist: Set in 1983, Red Miller (Cage) is a broken and haunted man, who hunts the unhinged religious sect who slaughtered the love of his life.

Production Co./Producers: SpectreVision‘s Daniel Noah, Josh C. Waller and Elijah Wood (The Greasy Strangler), Umedia‘s Adrian Politowski (I Kill Giants), XYZ‘s Nate Bolotin (Brawl in Cell Block 99).

Prediction: Only one destination within Sundance is the Park City at Midnight section, but this could play anywhere including Cannes or Midnight Madness at TIFF.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). XYZ Films (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).