Utopia has acquired North American rights to The Sweet East, Sean Price Williams’ drama that had its premiere in this year’s Cannes festival Directors’ Fortnight.
Los Angeles-based Utopia is planning an autumn US release for the film, which also recently screened at the Karlovy Vary festival.
Marking the solo feature directing debut of independent film cinematographer Williams, The Sweet East follows a high school student who runs away and on her travels through the US encounters everything from white supremacists to Islamic radicals.
Film critic Nick Pinkerton wrote the script and Talia Ryder stars with Simon Rex, Earl Cave, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O Harris, Jacob Elordi and Rish Shah. Craig Butta, Alex Coco and Alex Ross Perry produced for Marathon Street and Base 12. The Match Factory is handling worldwide sales.
Williams commented: “Much in the spirit of the making of The Sweet East, Utopia offers a daring partnership for further exploring the possibilities of indie film distribution. We greatly look forward to collaborating with this progressive film distributor as the current state of cinema and distribution require a new vision.”
Utopia’s head of content Danielle DiGiacomo added: “Long celebrated for his cinematography, Sean Price Williams shows his mastery as an auteur in his own right with The Sweet East, his distinctly nonconformist odyssey of modern America. Utopia is honoured to take on his long-awaited debut and collaborate on a release that will be remembered as a seminal work of our time.”
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