Celine Held and Logan George’s feature debut has secured distribution. Vertical Entertainment snagged North American rights to “Topside,” the winner of SXSW’s 2020 Special Jury Award for Narrative Feature and Venice Film Festival’s Mario Serandrei Award for Best Technical Achievement. Deadline broke the news.
Inspired by true events, the film follows five-year-old Little (Farmer) and her mother Nikki (Held), “who live underneath the streets of New York City, in a community that has claimed long-abandoned subway tunnels as its home. When the pair are forced to flee above ground into a cold winter night, they are plunged into a challenging world of chaos and tragedy that makes their uncertain underground life seem idyllic by comparison.”
When we asked Held what drew her to the story she revealed, “In 2009, I was working in New York for Jumpstart AmeriCorps in a kindergarten class with mostly low-income students. A few months into my job there, a child was removed from my class by Child Protective Services. We found out later that his mom had been filling out job applications and marking she had a dependent, but had no permanent place to live — which is illegal in New York. His mom came at the end of the day to pick him up, oblivious to him having been taken away, and was inconsolable,” she recalled. “I started reading a lot about the foster care system after this incident, and the sometimes inconsistent rules that affect low-income families more than anyone else. There are currently about 22,000 children who are homeless right now in New York City and living in supportive housing or homeless shelters — a huge number that I had no idea existed. I was also reading ‘The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City’ by Jennifer Toth at the time, and came across a particularly striking line. When the author asked a tunnel dweller if there were children who lived down there, he replied no. After a moment, he added, ‘We have adults as young as five.'”
The filmmaker explained, “That line has stuck with me — it was the clearest way to describe who the children were in this school, almost all living lives below the poverty line — all these five-year old adults forced to grow up too fast. I wanted to find a cinematic way to tell that story.”
“’Topside’ is a critically acclaimed story that, at its core, is about the deep love and emotional connection between a mother and her child who survive in this atmospheric underground world,” said Vertical Entertainment Partner Peter Jarowey. “It’s both heartbreaking and exhilarating from start to finish and we’re incredibly proud to bring Celine and Logan’s feature film debut to those who are sure to be just as captivated by the tale as we were.”
Held and George added, “We’re beyond excited to share ‘Topside’ with the world, and Vertical is the perfect partner to champion this story. ‘Topside’ is the culmination of years of research, working with families across New York City and learning their stories. We are thrilled audiences will get a chance to experience the ride of this film in theaters and at home and hope it will challenge viewers’ notions about people living without housing. As the writers and directors, we are endlessly grateful for Vertical’s incredible support in bringing this film to the world.”
Held and George’s shorts include “Caroline” and “Lockdown.” The former screened in competition at Cannes, made its U.S. premiere at SXSW, and was shortlisted for Best Live Action Short Film at the Oscars, and the latter premiered at Sundance and went on to screen at SXSW.
Vertical Entertainment recently snagged rights to another woman-directed pic on our radar, Krystin Ver Linden’s “Alice.” Led by Keke Palmer, the historical revenge thriller tells the story of an enslaved person who escapes a rural Georgia plantation and discovers that she’s living in an entirely different time period than she was led to believe.
