Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #35. Brett Story – The Hottest August (Docu)

Published on November 21, 2018

A subject close to Robert Redford’s heart, climate change has been haphazardly handled in the likes of An Inconvenient Truth and perhaps The Hottest August is the truth serum that is needed for the now. Helmer behind The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016), Brett Story was a 2016-2017 Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow, went to the 2018 Doc Edit Lab, and is supported by the Cinereach folks.

Gist: A film about climate change, disguised as a portrait of collective anxiety, The Hottest August offers a window into the collective consciousness of the present.

Production Co./Producers: Danielle Varga (Cameraperson), Brett Story.

Prediction: U.S. Documentary Competition.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (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).