Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: James Ponsoldt’s Summering

Published on November 24, 2021

With the exception of 2017’s The Circle (which received a Tribeca Film Festival premiere), James Ponsoldt had his four previous films Off the Black (2006), Smashed (2012), The Spectacular Now (2013) and The End of the Tour (2015) all premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmaker has stayed consistently busy with sprinkling of television projects but he got back in the saddle hitting the half dozen mark this summer on Ponsoldt’s a coming-of-age Stand By Me sounding Summering. Shot in the state of Utah, the cast is comprised of Lia Barnett, Lake Bell, Sarah Cooper, Ashley Madekwe, Madalen Mills, Megan Mullally, Eden Grace Redfield and Sanai Victoria. Of the films with distributors jockeying for a slot at the festival, this Bleecker Street could actually bypass Park City for say another Tribeca preem for the filmmaker. Worth noting that this one of three projects (Call Jane, Soft & Quiet) in our list for cinematographer Greta Zozula.

Gist: During the last days of summer and childhood, the weekend before middle school begins, four girls (Mari, Dina, Lola and Daisy) discover a dead body and set off on a journey when they struggle with the harsh truths of growing up and come to terms with saying goodbye.

Production Co./Producers: 3311 Productions’ P. Jennifer Dana, A Bigger Boat’s Peter Block, Ninety-One Braves’ James Ponsoldt.

Prediction: PREMIERES

U.S. Distributor: Bleecker Street.

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).