Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man

Published on November 6, 2023

We begin our predictions list with what is one of about a half dozen or so A24 titles that are waiting to get out of the gates and Aaron Schimberg‘s third feature film is probably the one that has benefitted from the most time in post. Moving into production in the month of July in 2022 in New York City, A Different Man is coined as a psychological thriller (that sure sounds trippy) with the likes of Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson – who we recall from Glazer’s Under the Skin but was also a topliner in Schimberg’s sophomore feature, Chained for Life. Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield (his most recent work is 2022’s Resurrection and 2023’s Manodrome also worked on the project.

Gist: This follows Edward, an outcast who is seeking a new life and fresh start. After he undergoes facial reconstructive surgery, he becomes fixated on a man starring as him in a stage production based on his former life.

Production Co./Producers: Jason Reif, Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and Gabriel Mayers, Grand Motel Films’ Vanessa McDonnell.

Prediction: U.S. Dramatic Competition.

U.S. Distributor/Sales: A24.

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).