Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s I.S.S.

Published on November 23, 2021

In 2013, Gabriela Cowperthwaite won over critics and Sundance auds alike with her docu Blackfish – a box office hit that happened to make significant impact on one for profit aspect of animal captivity. For her third and forth features, she would move into narrative features with PSTD drama Megan Leavey, and the sappy end-of-life portrait Our Friend. This past February, Cowperthwaite launched into space with a 2020 Black Listed screenplay thriller starring Chris Messina, Pilou Asbaek, John Gallagher Jr., Costa Ronin and Masha Mashkova. Filming on I.S.S. took place in Wilmington, NC, and seeing this is a weighty (budget north of 20 million) space film means a bit more time might be spent in post-production. Chances are slim, but it’s something to watch out for. Perhaps Toronto stands a better chance.

Gist: Written by Nick Shafir, at any given moment, there are roughly six astronauts living aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and the thriller follows the actions they take after receiving distressing information from Earth that threatens their missions and their lives.

Production Co./Producers: LD’s Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon are producing.

Prediction: PREMIERES.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. (domestic, 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).