Shane Atkinson’s Dark Comedy ‘LaRoy’ Wins Top Awards at Deauville Festival
09.09.2023 - 22:51
/ variety.com
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Shane Atkinson’s “LaRoy,” a crime thriller laced with dark comedy, swept three major prizes at the 49th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival. The movie, which marks Atkinson’s feature debut and showcases Coen brothers influences, won the Grand Prize, the Audience Award and the Critics Award. It stars John Magaro as Ray, who decides to kill himself after discovering his wife has been cheating on him.
But just before he pulls a trigger, a stranger takes him for a low-rent hitman. The movie was produced by the Cannes-based company Adastra Films and was acquired by a French distributor, ARP Selection, during the Deauville Film Festival. It previously opened at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Jury Prize, meanwhile was shared by two films, Sean Price Williams’ “The Sweet East” and Iranian-born director Babak Jalali’s “Fremont.” “The Sweet East” marks the feature debut of Price, a well-established cinematographer whose credits include “Good Time.” The film is a coming of age following a high school student (Talia Ryder) who runs away while on a school trip and hits the road. It world premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight. “Fremont,” meanwhile, is a black-and-white film that tells the story of Donya, a young woman working at a Chinese fortune cookie factory in the San Francisco bay.
In his speech in Deauville, Jalali paid tribute to the genuine performance of Anaita Wali Zada, a real-life Afghan refugee, who had never acted before and stars opposite Jeremy Allen White. The movie bowed at Sundance and is represented by Memento International. This year’s competition jury was presided over by popular French actor-director Guillaume Canet, and included screenwriter-novelist
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