Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Lina Roessler’s Best Sellers

Published on November 16, 2020

An actress turned director hit the lottery when the likes of Michael Caine, Aubrey Plaza and Cary Elwes lined up for her directorial debut. Canuck Lina Roessler‘s Best Sellers is based on Anthony Grieco’s original screenplay, which won the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting award. Production on the Canadian-UK funded dramedy began in mid 2019 in Montreal (with some Los Angeles in the backdrop as well) and pictured locked during the Covid and would be an acquisitions friendly title for adult auds.

Gist: The story follows a has-been author (Michael Caine), who is on a wild book tour with a young editor (Aubrey Plaza), trying to save her father’s boutique publishing house. Caine’s miserable and sharp-witted author just wants to live out his days in peace with a bottle of scotch, a cigar and his orange Tabby cat, but Plaza’s hopeful editor pulls him out of his reclusion.

Production Co./Producers: Arielle and Cassian Elwes, Wishing Tree Productions’ Jonathan Vanger, Item 7’s Pierre Even, Wayne Marc Godfrey, Petr Jákl.

Prediction: PREMIERES

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Elwes (domestic). Foresight Unlimited (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).