Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #84. Scott Z. Burns – The Torture Report

Published on November 23, 2018

It would be kind of neat to see Scott Z. Burns premiere his directorial debut at the same time as his frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh unveils High Flying Bird (#32 on our Predictions list). A scribe who first got into the game via Pu-239 (2006), arguably his best gigs have been for 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum, 2009’s The Informant! and 2013’s Side Effects. A mentor-in-residence for Sundance Screenwriters Labs, Burns began production on The Torture Report in April this year in NYC with the likes of Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Tim Blake Nelson, Ben McKenzie, Matthew Rhys, Ted Levine, Michael C. Hall and Maura Tierney. The project is based on a Vanity Fair article.

Gist: the CIA’s extreme interrogation methods following the September 11 attacks

Production Co./Producers: Scott Z. Burns, Jennifer Fox, Danny Gabai, Eddy Moretti, Kerry Orent, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Sugar

Prediction: High value acquisitions titles for the Premieres category.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (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).