Rebecca Hall Talks Her Sundance Directorial Debut ‘Passing,’ Her Family’s Bi-Racial Ancestry, Questions Of Identity & More [Interview]

One of the Sundance Film Festival titles this year expected to spark a bidding war was Passing, the directorial debut from Rebecca Hall. The movie, an ambitious period piece, had plenty of buzz going into the festival, and that continued with largely positive reviews.

As she explained to us in an interview of the Deep Focus podcast, Rebecca Hall has been working a long time bringing her directorial debut, “Passing,” to life. Even though the debut was delayed due to the pandemic, the period drama finally premiered as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Big news for Rebecca Hall!

Irene (Tessa Thompson) rarely passes for white. She fears for her safety too much to do so.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is nearing a deal to acquire worldwide rights to Passing, the Rebecca Hall-directed and scripted drama that stars Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, Andre Holland, and Alexander Skarsgard. Sources said the deal will land just north of $15 million.

Rebecca Hall came across Nella Larsen’s novel “Passing” at a time when she was grappling with her own family history.She’d become aware that her maternal grandfather was “white passing,” and it might have gone back even further. Then someone handed her this book, from 1929, about two light-skinned Black women, Clare and Irene, who live on opposite sides of the color line.

Exquisite performances from Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga provide the pulsing, emotionally heightened center to Passing, Rebecca Hall's assured move behind the camera, adapted with great sensitivity from the 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen. "We're all of us passing for something or other, aren't we?" muses Thompson's melancholy character Irene Redfield.

Sundance Film Festival Cinema Café talk on Sunday with Rebecca Hall. “Everybody was a judge and there was so much bullying going on.

Jessica Kiang It starts in sweltering heat; it ends in freezing weather. And in between, as the temperature gradually drops, Rebecca Hall’s “Passing,” based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, calmly brings the diffuse racial landscape of prohibition-era New York City into crystalline, gorgeously shot focus.

Irene (Tessa Thompson) rarely passes for white. She fears for her safety too much to do so.

The presumed dead-and-buried practice of racial passing by light-skinned blacks in the United States decades ago is returned to center-stage in Passing, a delicate, sensitive, intentionally claustrophobic and not entirely limber directorial debut from the protean British stage performer Rebecca Hall.

See Photos: 14 Buzziest Sundance Movies for Sale in 2021, From Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' to Rebecca Hall's 'Passing'As conflicted Irene, Thompson delivers her finest work to date, reminiscent of her turn in the recent period piece “Sylvie’s Love” but with greater substance.

Netflix is releasing a bunch of new titles! There are a few exciting originals coming to the streaming platform this month, including, starring Katherine Heigl and, the new black-and-white film starring Zendaya and John David Washington.Speaking of John David Washington, director Christopher Nolan's 2010 mind-bender,  also hits Netflix in February.Read on below for everything new you can watch on Netflix in February.

What kind of market will a pandemic-slimmed virtual 2021 Sundance Film Festival bring?

Sure, Sundance is absolutely loaded with some amazing prestige films that are sure to be in the discussion at the end of the year during awards season. Rebecca Hall’s “Passing?” Looks incredible and thought-provoking.

Rebecca Hall discusses making the move from acting to directing, her new racial-identity movie “Passing”, and more in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Also Read: 14 Buzziest Sundance Movies for Sale in 2021, From Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' to Rebecca Hall's 'Passing' (Photos)After all, the statistics are formidable: Over the last five years, Sundance has produced three of the five Oscars documentary winners, 13 of the 25 nominees and 42 of the 75 shortlisted films.

Also Read: 14 Buzziest Sundance Movies for Sale in 2021, From Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' to Rebecca Hall's 'Passing' (Photos)“Prisoners of the Ghostland” is presented by Patriot Pictures and was fully financed by Michael Mendelsohn’s Union Patriot Capital Management.

Godzilla Vs. Kong has been released by Warner Bros.