Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane

Published on November 22, 2021

Finishing just a tad too late for entry into the 2021 autumn film fest schedule, Protagonist Pictures will gift Call Jane at some major film festival next year and we’re thinking it might come as early as January with Sundance. Known for penning Todd Haynes’ Carol, Phyllis Nagy‘s second outing (after 2005’s Television film Mrs. Harris) was a mid-ranked Blacklist Screenplay and had some early changes in the casting line-up back in 2019. Going into production in October of 2020 in Connecticut, we find Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara, Chris Messina, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith and Aida Turturro. Due to current political climate (hello Texas), the subject matter is extremely timely and very Main Street rally friendly. Hayley Schore & Roshan Sethi penned the screenplay.

Gist: Based on the book The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan, this is about a married woman with an unwanted pregnancy lives in a time in America where she can’t get a legal abortion and works with a group of suburban women to find help.

Production Co./Producers: Robbie Brenner, Kevin McKeon, David Wulf.

Prediction: PREMIERES.

U.S. Distributor: Rights available. Protagonist Pictures (world).

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).