A24 has acquired the North American rights to “Aftersun,” Charlotte Wells’ drama that stars Paul Mescal and made its premiere at Cannes in the Critics’ Week section of the festival.
The film is Wells’ directorial debut and also stars newcomer Frankie Corio.
“Aftersun” has proven to be a real tearjerker and a critical darling out of Cannes among many highlights thus far. The film follows Corio as Sophie, a girl on a melancholy holiday with her young father, played by Mescal. The film shows Sophie as an adult reflecting on memories both real and imagined as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t.
Carlos Aguilar in his review for TheWrap called it a “heart-achingly stirring and sensorially entrancing debut feature” from Wells, who also wrote the script. Wells previously directed the short films “Blue Christmas” and “Laps” from 2017.
The film is produced by Adele Romanski, Barry Jenkins and Mark Ceryak for PASTEL and Amy Jackson for Unified Theory. Executive producers on “Aftersun” are Eva Yates for BBC Film, Lizzie Francke for BFI, Kieran Hannigan for Screen Scotland, Tim Headington and Lia Buman for Tango.
“Aftersun” was financed by BBC Film, BFI (awarding National Lottery funding) and Screen Scotland, in association with Tango. The film was developed with BBC Film.
A24 also came to Cannes with Ethan Coen’s documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.” The distributor just released in theaters “Men” from director Alex Garland and had its highest grossing film at the box office yet with this year’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
