Two women-directed films that bowed at Sundance 2018 recently scored distribution deals: Christina Choe’s Andrea Riseborough-starrer “Nancy” and Lorna Tucker’s Vivienne Westwood documentary “Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist.”
Samuel Goldwyn Films snagged the North American rights to Choe’s feature debut, a psychological thriller about a woman who becomes convinced she was kidnapped as a child. A press release announced the acquisition. “Nancy” took home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance and is scheduled for theatrical release in 2018.
“[I] hope that audiences will raise their threshold for female characters who are morally ambiguous and complex — in the same way we are regularly entertained by male counterparts like Travis Bickle and Walter White,” Choe said of her protagonist. When we asked the writer-director her advice for other female filmmakers, she said, “No matter what anybody says you have every right to be here and tell your stories. There are people who want to hear them. It’s a matter of perseverance.”
“Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist” is also Tucker’s feature debut. Deadline reports that Greenwich Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights to the doc about the influential fashion designer and Hollywood favorite.
“I never set out to make a fashion film — instead I wanted to create a portrait of an artist, businesswoman, and activist,” Tucker told us. “‘Westwood’ is a film that presents Vivienne Westwood as she is today but dips back in time to explore how she got there, and why she’s as relevant as ever.”
“Lorna Tucker has managed to get behind a very prickly exterior to reveal the life and career of one of pop culture’s great iconoclasts,” commented Greenwich Co-Managing Director Ed Arentz.
No word on when “Westwood” will hit U.S. theaters but it’ll be released by Dogwoof on March 23 in the UK.
