Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Nicole Riegel’s Dandelion

Published on November 9, 2023

Selected for SXSW in 2020 but unfortunately that was the last minute canceled edition, Nicole Riegel‘s debut film Holler would technically land its world premiere at the 2020 Deauville American Film Festival. She quickly followed this up with a sophomore film that shot in October of 2022 shot in Cincinnati and South Dakota — the IFC Films folks re-teamed with the director and will distribute. A romantic drama, Dandelion is toplined by KiKi Layne who also has producer creds.

Gist: KiKi Layne plays a struggling, but determined Cincinnati singer-songwriter in a downward spiral. She reluctantly takes a last ditch effort gig at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota where she meets Casey, a guitarist who walked away from his dream long ago. As Dandelion joins Casey’s eclectic and nomadic group of struggling musicians, the two kindred spirits make music together and strike up an intoxicating whirlwind romance that moves Dandelion from an obsession with results and a narrow view of success to a deeper appreciation of her artistic journey and the discovery of a voice that is authentically her own.

Production Co./Producers: Adam Cobb, Pete McClellan, Nicole Riegel, Griffin Drive Productions’ Rian Cahill.

Prediction: Premieres.

U.S. Distributor: IFC Films.

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).