Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #72. David Gutnik – Russian American

Published on November 22, 2018

Brooklyn-born and based David Gutnik has been chipping away at Russian American (formerly Brighton Beach) since 2016, with post perhaps being further delayed because of editing duties on Christina Choe‘s Sundance winner Nancy (here is a glimpse of him at the world preem). Landing British singer FKA Twigs (Tahliah Debrett Barnett) for the lead role (she is supposedly adding some of her tracks), and employing the services of cinematographer Oleg Mutu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) this crime drama also includes players Barney Harris, Costa Ronin, Sofia Vassilieva and Michael Kingsbaker.

Gist: This follows the rivalry between a family-run medical practice and a local mob boss caught up in a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud racket.

Production Co./Producers: Michelle Booso, Molly Conners (Birdman), Giulio Marantonio (Kicks), Jane Oster.

Prediction: NEXT section.

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).