Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #71. Sebastian Schipper – Roads

Published on November 22, 2018

Exploding onto the scene with his fourth feature film in 2015’s Victoria (read review) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, Sebastien Schipper actually saw his debut film Gigantic premiere at Sundance back in 2000. Schipper went into production on Roads in October back in 2017 with Fionn Whitehead, Stéphane Bak, Moritz Bleibtreu and Ben Chaplin. Not showing up on the 2018 festival circuit and a February release date in Germany means Park City is an option.

Gist: Written by Sebastian Schipper and Oliver Ziegenbalg, this follows William (Bak), a young man from the Congo, as he attempts to break through Europe’s borders in search of his brother. By chance he teams up with Gyllen (Whitehead), a wild and sharp-witted British runaway who has fled his family’s Moroccan holiday in his stepfather’s campervan.

Production Co./Producers: David Keitsch (Toni Erdmann), Sebastian Schipper.

Prediction: World Dramatic Comp and a Berlin Film Fest showing is a certainty.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. (domestic). Hanway Films (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 1976 (Manuela Martelli), Godland (Hlynur Pálmason), Corsage (Marie Kreutzer), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen).