Adamma Ebo Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul

Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Adamma Ebo’s Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul

Published on November 23, 2021

Adamma Ebo got her baptism into feature filmmaking this past summer when she expanded her short 2018 film of the (almost) the same title for the long form. For Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, Ebo lassoed A-listers Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown for a set in Atlanta insider’s look at the inner workings of yr typical megachurch with a mockumentary template to boot. There is some connective tissue between Sundance and this project as it was one of the lucky eleven projects to be part of the rather new initiative from the Institute – the part 2019 Sundance Screenwriting Intensive. A UCLA grad, Ebo is a Los Angeles based filmmaker working on different on a multitude of projects in the industry, her feature was backed by the likes of Daniel Kaluuya, Rowan Riley, Amandla Crichlow, her twin sister Adanne Ebo and Kara Durrett.

Gist: In the aftermath of huge scandal, Trinity Childs (Hall), the first lady of a prominent and respected Southern Baptist megachurch, attempts to help her pastor-husband (Brown) rebuild their now borderline non-existent congregation. However, they must find a way to reconcile their faith with their personal demons in order to make the biggest comeback that commodified religion has ever seen.

Production Co./Producers: Jessamine Burgumm, Matthew R. Cooper, Amandla Crichlow, Kara Durrett, Adanne Ebo, Rowan Riley.

Prediction: U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. UTA Independent Film Group, CAA Media Finance and ICM Partners (domestic). TBD (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).