Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Nicholas Jarecki’s Dreamland

Published on November 17, 2020

Taking just a tad bit more time in post-production and lining up for what would be some Gary Oldman Mank buzz, the acquisitions friendly sophmore feature Dreamland went into production in Montreal in March of 2019 with Oldman being joined by Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Lily-Rose Depp, Luke Evans, Indira Varma and Kid Cudi. His 2012 debut film Arbitrage was a Sundance selection, so the timing sounds a bit right here.

Gist: This follows three colliding stories: A drug trafficker (Hammer) arranges a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S.; an architect (Lilly) recovering from an OxyContin addiction tracks down the truth behind her son’s involvement with narcotics; and a university professor (Oldman) battles unexpected revelations about his employer, a drug company with deep government influence bringing a new “non-addictive” painkiller to market.

Production Co./Producers: Cassian Elwes and Nicholas Jarecki.

Prediction: PREMIERES

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Endeavor Content (domestic). Solution Entertainment Group (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).