Nanfu Wang’s award-winning new documentary has found a home. FilmRise has acquired North American distribution rights to “I Am Another You,” and PBS’ “Independent Lens” secured U.S broadcast rights for the feature, a press release has announced. Wang’s directorial debut, “Hooligan Sparrow,” was shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Academy Awards.
“I Am Another You” follows the “unlikely story of a young drifter named Dylan. Told in three chapters, the film takes place over a number of years and in different phases of … Wang’s new life in America. After meeting Dylan by chance while traveling throughout the country, Wang is charmed by his eccentric and freewheeling lifestyle,” the film’s official synopsis details. “Fascinated by Dylan’s rejection of convention, the filmmaker begins to delve into his past and the history of his life on the street. Wang soon discovers that her idealism may have clouded her initial judgments of Dylan, and that such extreme freedom may have a hidden cost. What seemed at first to be the embodiment of the American Dream is in fact much more complicated.”
A theatrical release is planned for late 2017, and “I Am Another You” will debut on “Independent Lens” in early 2018. The doc will also be available to stream next year on Amazon Prime Video.
The film made its world premiere at this year’s SXSW, where it won two awards: A Special Jury Award for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling and the SXSW LUNA Chicken & Egg Award.
“Nanfu uses her outsider perspective as a Chinese filmmaker to bring a luminous new perspective to the romantic American idea of the young vagabond,” said Lois Vossen, executive producer of “Independent Lens.” “‘I Am Another You’ plays like an empathetic hipster detective story and shatters our image of who is living on our streets.”
Wang commented, “We’re so thrilled to be working with FilmRise and ‘Independent Lens.’ Our hope is for this film to provoke new conversations across the country, across age groups, and on all kinds of platforms, and we couldn’t ask for better partners than FilmRise and ‘Independent Lens’ to make this possible.”
In addition to directing the doc, Wang photographed, edited, and produced the project.
“My advice to female directors is the same as my advice to any director: I don’t feel that there’s anything male directors can do that I can’t,” Wang told us. “Pick up a camera and go shoot. With today’s technology, even a smartphone can shoot a feature film.”
Wang’s first film, “Hooligan Sparrow,” follows women’s rights advocate Ye Haiyan, better known as Hooligan Sparrow, as she fights for human rights in China. She led a protest when two Chinese government officials received light sentences after sexually abusing six schoolgirls. The doc was filmed with hidden cameras, pocket recorders, and a camera built into a pair of glasses, and Wang smuggled the footage from China to prevent it from being seized.
