Festival Predictions

2022 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Ray Romano’s Mr. Russo

Published on November 23, 2021

After the long career in front of the camera, and recent work with Martin Scorsese, Reed Morano, and a recent raft of indie filmmakers, Ray Romano got behind the camera for the formerly titled Mr. Russo. Production began this past April with the actor starring alongside Laurie Metcalf in a New York City dramedy that promises pasta sauce, hoops, arguments and other blue collar bliss. This acquisitions title is also a first film offering from TV series / Scrubs writer Mark Stegemann.

Gist: Leo (Romano) and Angela (Metcalf) Russo live a simple, blue-collar life in Queens, surrounded by the big personalities of their overbearing Italian-American family. When their lanky soft-spoken son ‘Sticks’ finds success on his high school basketball team and a chance at a life beyond what tradition expects, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.

Production Co./Producers: Bonafide Productions’ Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa.

Prediction: PREMIERES.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. ICM Partners (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).