Jonathan Nossiter
US
The tag line most overused by sales companies attending Cannes is "Sundance hit!" It is ironic, therefore, that the film that not only won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's festival but also picked up the prestigous Waldo Salt screenwriting award is the most backward in coming forward. The movie is Jonathan Nossiter's feature film debut, Sunday.
In mid-March, the producers finally announced that the independent distributor Cinepix Film Properties (CFP) had the North American rights. Now, thanks to a deal closed with Curb in April, buyers in Cannes can go shopping for the genuine success story of this year's Sundance Film Festival.
"We wanted a distributor who showed passion and who would sell the film in the way and spirit it was made," Nossiter told Moving Pictures before leaving New York for Cannes.
Arguably, the reason Sunday won the prizes was that it chose to swim against the conformity in Sundance this year, where most films seemed to deal with the subject of teenage angst. Put simply, Sunday is part psychological whodunit, part modern Brief Encounter, based around an apparent case of mistaken identity. It is a romantic mystery, set in the improbably lyrical urbanscape of Nossiter's own backyard, Queens.
Madeleine, a middle-aged English actress, played by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Lisa Harrow, out of work but not out of hope, accosts Oliver, played by David Suchet (a man best known to the world as Poirot), a downsized IBM executive, with the words, "You're Matthew Delacorta, the film director." The fateful phrase, innocent or not, turns a typical winter Sunday in New York into a day of romantic intrigue, deceit and emotional hijinks that leaves both sides, and hopefully the audience, reeling.
Woven into the main story are a series of seemingly random and unconnected tales of Oliver's fellow homeless at the small shelter he frequents. These provide a subtle dramatic counterpoint to the central action.
Sunday promises to be as fresh in Cannes as it was the day it bloomed in Park City. Christopher Pickard
Prod co: Goatworks Films
Prod: Jonathan Nossiter & Alix Madigan
Dir: Jonathan Nossiter
Scr: James Lasdun & Jonathan Nossiter
Ph: Michael Barrow, John Foster & Daniel Lerner
Ed: Madeline Gavin
Cast: David Suchet, Lisa Harrow, Jared Harris
Running Time: 93 minutes
International sales: Curb
