Last week, Tribeca Film acquired all North American rights to For Ellen, a deeply felt dramatic study of a father’s efforts at reconciliation with his young daughter. The film, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, is Kim’s follow-up to independent standouts Treeless Mountain and In Between Days. Bradley Rust Gray and Jen Gatien serve as producers through SoandBrad and DeerJen films.
Tribeca Film plans a fall release in select theatrical markets, beginning September 5th at New York’s Film Forum. For Ellen will also be released via On Demand platforms where it will be available in 40+ million homes on a variety of video-on-demand offerings, as well as iTunes, Amazon Watch Instantly, VUDU, Xbox and Samsung Media Hub.
Aspiring rock star Joby Taylor (Paul Dano- There Will Be Blood, Little Miss Sunshine) has wanted nothing more than to “make it”, having flirted with fame but never crossed over into true success. In the midst of a low period in his life, he agrees to sign divorce papers with his estranged wife (Margarita Levieva– “Revenge,” “How To Make It In America”) in order to see money from the sale of their home, only to discover that by signing the papers, he will forfeit all custody of his six–year–old daughter, Ellen (newcomer Shaylena Mandigo). With a good–natured lawyer (Jon Heder– Napoleon Dynamaite) unable to make headway in reversing the decision, and a girlfriend (Jena Malone– Into the Wild) that represents an era of his life that he might be ready to graduate from, Joby negotiates a visit with his daughter to explore whether he is able to walk away from his child, and whether it might be too late for reconciliation.
The video below features the director So Yong Kim talking about For Ellen when is screened at the Sundance Film Festival…
Dano has been making some waves in both Hollywood and independent film circles. Most recently he starred opposite Robert De Niro in Being Flynn (click here to read our review) where he, like he did acting opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, more than held his own. He’ll also be in the upcoming film Ruby Sparks which is set to for release late in 2012. Should be a big end of the year for Dano to say the least. Sound interesting??
One Comment
Andrew Crump
I almost saw this at IFFBoston this year but the timing didn’t work. Seeing Dano in that sort of role intrigues me– I would never peg him for the type or age.