Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Will Joines & Karrie Crouse’s Dust

Published on November 10, 2023

A project that due to the pandemic saw the lead shifting from Claire Foy to Sarah Paulson, production on Karrie Crouse and Will Joines‘ Dust would take place around August of last year in New Mexico with Annaleigh Ashford, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Bill Heck and Amiah Miller among the cast. Dust is scheduled to be released by Searchlight Pictures with plans to launch the film via Hulu but we sense that this psychological horror thriller is of interest because it was workshopped at the Sundance Institute Writer’s Lab — dating all the back to 2014. Prior to this feature debut, the tandem worked in the short film form.

Gist: In 1930s Oklahoma, this follows a woman (Sarah Paulson) who is trapped by increasingly perilous dust storms and is haunted by her past encounters. She becomes convinced that a mysterious presence is threatening her family and takes extraordinary measures to protect them.

Production Co./Producers: Alix Madigan and Lucas Joaquin.

Prediction: Midnight.

U.S. Distributor/Sales: Searchlight / HULU

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).