EXCLUSIVE: Juno Films has acquired all North American rights to Galway Film Fleadh award winner Horseshoe directed by Edwin Mullane and Adam O’Keeffe.
The distributor plans a spring 2026 theatrical release on the comedic family drama about four estranged siblings who return to their crumbling family home in the West of Ireland and navigate inheritance, grief and long-buried grudges and secrets.
Horseshoe won the Best Irish First Feature award at Galway Film Fleadh and stars Carolyn Bracken, Lalor Roddy, John Connors, Mary Murray, Jed Murray, Neill Fleming, Eric O’Brien and Caroline Harvey
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“When everyone in the world left me, all I had was my skateboard and my dream,” Leandre Sanders
Juno Films has acquired the world rights to the critically-acclaimed documentary SKATEGOAT by Van Alpert. Winner of the Audience Award for Best Australian Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival and Best Documentary at the British Urban Film Festival (BUFF). SKATEGOAT is set for a limited U.S. theatrical release in the winter of 2025. It will have its US theatrical premier on November 12th at the NoHo Laemmle theatre in Los Angeles with an introduction by Gwyneth Paltrow, followed by a week-long run with additional markets to follow.
Leandre Sanders, known as “the man with no stance,” is the first skater in history to switch effortlessly between goofy (right foot forward) and regular (left foot forward) stances. Yet Skategoat is more than a sports narrative; it’s a compelling insight into what it takes to survive and thrive against a background of impossible choices.
Born in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, Leandre’s parents were OGs and Leandre’s childhood was marked by homelessness and violence. At age 11, he and his younger brother Leontay found refuge in the Venice Beach skatepark. It was there that filmmaker Van Alpert met Leandre and began documenting his life, providing the boys with GoPros and cameras, creating a raw, unique use of home videos that forms the backbone of Skategoat.
At 13, amid a rapidly deteriorating domestic situation, Leandre’s family moved to Las Vegas, but he chose to stay behind, at times sleeping in the skate bowl to hold onto the one thing that sustained him: skateboarding. Over the next few years, Skategoat traces his brother-like bond with his best friend Haden, the generosity of a local woman named Katie who looked out for the two boys, and later, the relationship with Chauntelle, who helped Leandre break free from the constant anxieties of the atmosphere of Venice Beach. With her support, he escaped to Melbourne, where he perfected his unique skating stance and grew his social media profile exponentially. Today Leandre is a Pro Skater, with a signature board, and skate shoe, and sometime model for international luxury brands, including Prada.
SKATEGOAT recounts both the relentless drive it takes to go pro, including interviews with skateboarding icon Tony Hawk, as well as the realities of living without a home as young kid on the streets of LA. Set against the grittily evocative backdrop of Venice Beach, the film spans a decade of decline in Los Angeles. While Leandre clung to skateboarding as a lifeline, his younger brother and best friend, Leontay, was caught up in a cycle of crime, eventually ending up in prison.
Ellen Fisk describes the film as “A powerful coming-of-age documentary that blends captivating archive with a moving story of resilience, injustice, and brotherhood…Skategoat reminds us that passion is more than a pastime — it can be an occupation, a lifeline, and a form of resistance.”
The deal was negotiated between Edwina Waddy of Roadshow Films and Vondah Elizabeth Sheldon, CEO of Juno Films. “Leandre is the rare survivor who through sport escapes the destiny he was born into,” says Vondah Elizabeth. “He is an inspiration of the possibilities that await those with talent, determination and passion, and let us not forget love and support. We are thrilled to be working with the team behind SKATEGOAT to bring it to screens of all sizes to skateboarding fans and those who love inspirational documentaries.”
“The last 10 years have been an incredible, soul enriching ride with Pro Skater Leandre and Film Director Van Alpert, making this incredible story of hope, resilience, belief and determination, As film makers and story tellers, we have made documentaries and TV series over many decades about the triumph of family, found family and the enduring human spirit but SKATEGOAT is our proudest to date. We are thrilled in the way the film has been received on the international film festival circuit and so excited to see Juno release this in the US and around the world,” states Michael Lawrence, Skategoat EP & Producer at This Film Studio
Juno Films is a boutique film distributor specializing in all-rights releases. Recent releases include the critically-acclaimed THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN and the award-winning Irish documentary HOUSEWIFE OF THE YEAR. SKATEGOAT is a Michael Lawrence Production starring Leandre Sanders, directed by Van Alpert. Producers: Michael Lawrence, Nick Cook. Executive Producers: Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Falchuk, Justin Graham, Joel Pearlman, Peter Kline, Taylor Steele, Edwina Waddy.
RogerEbert.com - “I flashed on “The Straight Story” as I watched “That They May Face the Rising Sun”. There’s a similar rural setting and a similar awareness of mortality. “The Straight Story”—and a lot of David Lynch’s work—makes great demands on its audience. You have to slow down. You can’t get impatient for the next thing. You have to breathe with the film. This is a heavy ask for an audience. “That They May Face the Rising Sun” makes similar demands. The payoff is intense. Quiet doesn’t mean undramatic, and slow doesn’t mean “it drags.”
CultureCatch - “simply a delight: a surrender to the power of cinema”
ScreenRant - “...a perfect examination of the multifaceted nature of life”
Movieweb - “A heartwarming, life-affirming, gossamer delicate-creation, That They May Face the Rising Sun says a lot but says it quietly.”
‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ is a meditative portrait of traditional, rural life in a changing Ireland
For the past several years, winning the “best film” award from the Irish Film & Television Academy has meant you’ve punched your ticket to America. From an Irish film industry that has grown dramatically over the past few decades, the features “Small Things Like These,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and “An Cailín Ciúin” (“The Quiet Girl”) have all brought Celtic charm to moviegoers stateside.
Now comes the IFTA’s 2024 best film winner, “That They May Face the Rising Sun.” Directed by Pat Collins, who has made a raft of documentaries and three features, the film captures the tail end of traditional rural life in Ireland in the 1980s, before the country belatedly modernized. It makes its premiere in the United States at the Dedham Community Theatre (as well as cinemas in New York City and Los Angeles) on April 11.
Read more at Boston Globe
Girls Will Be Girls won the John Cassavetes Award, given to a feature made for less than $1 million.
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."
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