Sony Classics shows some love for ‘Adoration’

Behemoth indie distributor Sony Pictures Classics (“Redbelt”, “Standard Operation Procedure”) taps Atom Egoyan’s Adoration for domestic and select international distribution rights.

Egoyan, producer of 2006’s “Away From Here”, is preeming his new directorial exploit “Adoration” at the 61st annual Cannes Film Festival in the main comp section against the likes of Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” and perennial Cannes darlings Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne with their film “Le Silence De Lorna”.

“Adoration”, besides being rumored to be in the hot seat for Palme d’Or honors, stars Scott Speedman (“Felicity”) as the legacy of two historical figures and Rachel Blanchard (who makes it two for two with Egoyan after starring in his tantalizing Where the Truth
Lies).

Adoration is set in the near-future and involves a high
school student who creates an online avatar that stimulates a real-life
community of mourners for a fictional catastrophe. Sabine, a high school French teacher, gives her class a translation
exercise based on a real news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb
in the airline luggage of his pregnant girlfriend. The assignment has a profound effect on one student, Simon, who reads
his version to the class and then takes it to the Internet. He has
created a false identity, which allows him to probe a family secret. As
Simon uses his new persona to journey deeper into his past, the public
reaction is swift and strong. Then an exotic woman revels her true
identity and the truth about Simon’s family emerges.

Canadian by way of Armenian parentage, Egoyan’s most commerical indie film came from 1997’s The Sweet Hereafter but he is probably most known for 2002’s Ararat, the film-with-a-film story about the claimed Armenian genocide between 1915-1918.

Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film into the US, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand towards the end of the year. “Adoration” marked the eighth collaboration between Egoyan and longtime producer partner Robert Lantos.