HOUSEWIFE OF THE YEAR takes Best Documentary Jury Award at Newport Beach Film Festival.
HOUSEWIFE OF THE YEAR tells the story of Ireland’s treatment of women through the prism of a unique, surreal, live televised competition, that has to be seen to be believed, where a generation of Irish women competed in front of a live audience for the title of ‘Housewife of the Year’. The former contestants share their direct experiences of marriage bars, lack of contraception, magdalene laundries, financial vulnerability, boredom and shame and of course, of being contestants in the competition. It is a poignant, often hilarious, uplifting story of a resilient generation of women and how they changed a country.
So many exciting updates for our filmmakers and films. We just found out yesterday that Shuchi Talati has been nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director for her film Girls Will Be Girls, which is a Juno Films release that we acquired out of Sundance after it won the Audience Award for Best World Cinema Dramatic. Read more at Variety and congratulations to Shuchi!
Read more on Variety
Premiering November 1st on PBS’s Great Performances is director Jon Else’s stunning behind-the-scenes film about the San Francisco Opera’s performance of Jon Adams’ "Girls of the Golden West." The film transports us into very funny and very dark worlds, as two versions of the same story march forward 170 years apart: men and women on a collision course in California on the Fourth of July, 1851, and behind the scenes with quick-witted young opera singers excavating that same history in the age of Trump. Whatever you were expecting in a documentary about the Gold Rush, this is not it.
Amid the backstage hubbub, composer John Adams, singers Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby, J’Nai Bridges, and director Peter Sellars wrestle their bittersweet show “Girls of the Golden West” onto the stage. In Jon Else’s third documentary with Adams, Deadwood meets A Night at the Opera, as this rollicking documentary lays bare the flamboyant and brutal roots of modern American excess.
Find showtimes at your local PBS station.
"Talati makes her feature-directing debut here, and she ably juggles all this dicey subject matter, avoiding both common coming-of-age clichés and the pitfalls of cheap melodrama. There’s a delectable, pitch-perfect hesitation to the performances. Everybody seems to be treading on eggshells, because they’re all navigating feelings they’re unsure of in a setting that doesn’t allow for uncertainty, fantasy, pleasure — or even really pain. Girls Will Be Girls is a modest work, but like some of the greatest films, it comes to vivid life before our eyes."
By
Read more on Vulture.com
EXCLUSIVE: Juno Films has acquired worldwide rights to Ciarán Cassidy‘s documentary Housewife of the Year, ahead of its North American premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. World premiering at CPH:DOX before going on to win Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh, the film will be released in theaters next spring.
Read more on Deadline
Directed by Áron Gauder, the mostly hand-drawn epic is at once solemn and playful in dealing with the world’s creation and modern threats to nature.
Read more on Variety
Juno Films has acquired US and multiple territory rights to Aleksander Sokurov’s Fairytale following its world premiere in Locarno Film Festival last summer.
Additionally Juno has acquired rights in Australia and New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands and will handle festival releases in those territories.
Fairytale was blocked by Russian censors and situates 20th century leaders Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Winston Churchill in Purgatory, where they are joined by Jesus Christ as they amble around, muttering in their mother tongues about their mundane preoccupations.
Read more on Screen Daily
Juno Films has nabbed North American rights to “Girls Will Be Girls,” a mother-daughter drama that premiered at Sundance Film Festival.
The movie will screen at SXSW next week before it lands in theaters this fall.
Read more on Variety
EXCLUSIVE: Boutique distributor Juno Films has taken North American rights to Playland, a queer genre-bender marking the first feature from writer-director Georden West. On the heels of a festival run that saw it world premiere in Rotterdam before going on to play the Tribeca Festival and others, the film is slated for a theatrical release this spring, with a digital release for Pride Month to follow in June.
Read more on Deadline
Juno Films
EXCLUSIVE: Juno Films has claimed U.S. rights to Four Souls of Coyote, the animated feature that marks Hungary’s official entry for the Best International Feature Oscar in 2024. Premiering at the Annecy Animated Film Festival, where it won the Jury Award for Best Feature, the film is now poised for an extended festival run into the spring of 2024, when it will be released in theaters.
Read more on Deadline