Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2012: #16. Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves

#16. Night Moves

Director/Writer: Kelly Reichardt
Producers: Neil Kopp (every single Reichardt film since Old Joy) and Film Science’s Anish Savjani
Distributor: Rights Available

The Gist: This centers on three environmentalists (Sarsgaard, Dano) who are intent on blowing up a dam…(more)

Cast: Paul Dano and Peter Sarsgaard

List Worthy Reasons…: Coming off her career best in Meek’s Cutoff (which was one of our top films of the year regardless if you think of the title as a 2011 or 2010 release — as we saw this in Toronto the year before), we hope that Reichardt has a long-lasting wind in her sails. Her she tacks the rarely explored subject matter of eco-terrorism and would be joined by actors (Dano for a second time in a row) in touch with their indie roots. Watch the doc If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front to get prepped for this work.

Release Date/Status?: Heading to Rotterdam this month as they’re still in financing mode, they’ve already got Dano and Sarsgaard on board and are one away from completing the trio – a female lead will be cast (Rooney Mara was mentioned) leaving us with the idea that it would take some miracle work for this to be released before 2013. But if this somehow gets anchored down early, this indie model (less punishing than the wagon pulling episodes in Meek’s Cutoff) might be economic enough for Venice and TIFF could consider themselves lucky again to have a Reichardt film among their line-ups.