Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Laura Chinn’s Suncoast

Published on November 17, 2023

A recent 2020 Black List ranked un-produced screenplay that quickly moved into production with the support of the Searchlight folks (the film will likely receive a Hulu release in 2024), Laura Chinn landed the likes of Nico Parker, Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson for her directorial debut — a personal tale about her upbringing. Production on Suncoast took place in September of last year in Charleston — and most recently she landed Este Haim (yes that Haim) and Chris Stracey to compose the score. The youth-oriented film also includes Nico Parker, Ella Anderson, Daniella Perkins, Amarr and Ariel Martin.

Gist: Inspired by Chinn’s life experience from the early aughts and follows a teenager (Parker) living with her strong-willed mother (Linney), who must take her brother to live at a specialized facility. There, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist (Harrelson) amidst protests surrounding one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.

Production Co./Producers: Jeremy Plager, Francesca Silvestri, Kevin Chinoy and Oly Obst.

Prediction: Premieres.

U.S. Distributor: Searchlight.

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).