Partners Sideshow Pictures and Janus Films open Everything we imagine as light and will follow the playbook for drive my carthe indie distributor’s first film, which began rolling slowly around this time in 2021, racked up awards, fine awards, and ended up with an Academy Award win for Best International Film amid a slew of nominations. Kapadia’s film, one of the best-reviewed films of the year, was rejected by India for an Oscar nomination. Its distributor has something to say about it and campaigns for other key categories.

Also this weekend, comedy A real pain starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin from Searchlight Pictures reaches 900+ screens in a major expansion. Sony Pictures Classics Saorsie Ronan star The Outrunwhich opened in early October and was down to 19 screens, is jumping back to 200 by popular demand, which is nice to hear.

GKIDS debuts Ghost Cat Anzu on over 300 screens. The animated film premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, see Deadline review. GKIDS also co-produced. Yellow Veil Pictures sci-fi comedy Dream Team produced by Jane Schoenbrun opens at Metrograph. Abramorama is out with Hello love, againa sequel to the 2019 Philippine hit.

Magnolia launches documentary The world according to Allee Willis in limited edition. The Bibi files hits LA and Watermelon Pictures debuts Mohamed Jabalys Life is beautiful: a letter to Gaza at NYC’s DCTV Firehouse.

Back to Everything we imagine as light: Writer-director Kapadia’s debut film is the first Indian film in 30 years to play in competition at Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix. It sits at 100% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes (72 reviews) with a Metacritic score of 94. Sideshow/Janus acquired the picture shortly before its Croisette premiere.

Limited opening in NY and LA and will roll out slowly thereafter. Sales are strong and Kapadia is doing Q&As on both coasts.

It follows two women, nurses and roommates Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), who live and work in Mumbai’s urban sprawl. See Deadline review. It had a French producer and has earned over $1 million at the box office since its October 4 release there. It was Oscar nominated in France, which ultimately chose Jacques Audiards Emilia Perez. India sent in comedy Laapataaa ladies.

Jonathan Sehring, the longtime head of IFC Films that launched Sideshow with partners in 2021, has been a vocal critic of the nomination process for International Feature, which is the only Oscar category not decided by Academy members. Hopefuls in this group are selected for consideration by a committee in each country. There are a number of reasons why it’s structured that way – without input from the wider artistic community – and it’s partly political, people say.

There was a minor uproar when France did not choose Anatomy Of A Case this year, and when India snubbed RRR in 2023. India has a history of selecting films that are not Oscar-friendly, even with a view to Monsoon Wedding, The Lunch Box and The disciple.

Each country receives only one submission. Germany submitted The seed of the sacred fig from Iranian dissident director Mohammad Rasoulo, which certainly would not be Iran’s choice. Iran selected In the arms of the tree.

Sehring (and he is not alone) says that academy members get to choose, not committees.

“The Academy is doing its members a disservice,” Sehring said, noting that 30% of the membership is from outside the United States. “They treat them like you can’t make the right decision. Or international movies are kind of second class.

“It’s frustrating that they don’t let Academy voters vote on the best international films … Every year they say, oh, we’re considering it, and nothing seems to change,” he said. “Every international filmmaker I talked to just says, well, it doesn’t make sense.”

Everything we consider light is a female narrative that is not necessarily aligned with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. In 2015, Helmer Kapadia was among dozens of students arrested for protesting the regime’s selection of a new director of the Film and Television Institute of India, where she studied.

Janus’s other films to date – a dozen or so have been made – are Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil does not exist. It has winners of the Venice Silver Bear Vermiglio from Italy out next month, and its first English-language film, David Cronenberg’s The guardscoming next year.

“We choose movies we love and we feel should be seen on the big screen and on as many screens as possible,” says Sehring. “I strongly believe in theater, especially with an international film, because otherwise it’s almost impossible to find good films in foreign languages ​​anywhere.”

Moderate release: In Ghost Cat Anzu by Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita, a wayward girl moves to rural Japan with her grandfather, a monk, and forms an unlikely friendship with an unpredictable supernatural cat guardian. Based on the manga of the same name by Takashi Imashiro.

Limited edition: Magnolia’s The world according to Allee Willis by Alexis Spraic follows the award-winning songwriter and performer (best known for writing Friends theme song and Earth Wind & Fire’s September), who began chronicling his life beginning in 1950s Detroit. Premiere at SXSW.

Dream Teaman absurdist homage to the seminal ’90s cable TV thriller, follows the episodic escapades of two hotshot West Coast Interpol agents who uncover an international cross-species mystery. This is the third outing by filmmakers Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn (L for leisure, Two Plains & A Fancy). It debuted at the 2024 Rotterdam International Film Festival and stars Esther Garrel and Alex Zhang Hungtai.

Life is beautiful: a letter to Gaza follows Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly for over seven years, detailing his separation from his family in Gaza, his support system and challenges as a stateless person in Norway, and the making of his debut documentary, Ambulance.

The Bibi files directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Bloom, Alex Gibney, Raviv Drucker, Kara Elverson and David Rahtz opens in LA for a qualifier. An exposé — based on leaked police interrogation footage and new interviews with key Israeli figures — about the corruption cases that resulted in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud in 2019. Screened at TIFF after an Israeli court blocked Netanyahu’s attempt to block it.