Films from Kamila Andini and Chandler Levack Picked Up for Distribution

Kamila Andini’s latest film, period drama “Before, Now & Then,” has secured distribution, with Film Movement picking it up for the North American market. Variety broke the news.

The film, which premiered earlier this year at Berlin Film Festival, is set in 1960s Indonesia, against the backdrop of growing anti-Communist sentiments. It follows Nana (Happy Salma, “Milea: Voice from Dilan”), who “cannot escape her past. Poverty-stricken, having lost her family to the war in West Java, she marries again and begins a new life,” the source details.

“Her new husband is wealthy, but her place in the home is menial, and he is unfaithful. Nana suffers in silence until the day she meets one of her husband’s mistresses and everything changes. Ino (Laura Basuki, ‘Susi Susanti: Love All’) is someone she can trust, someone who offers her comfort and to whom she can confide her secrets, past and present. Together, the two women find the hope of new freedom.” Basuki’s supporting performance earned a Silver Berlin Bear.

Andini said of the film: “‘Before, Now & Then’ is a recollective memory of my Sundanese mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. It is a journey through my own roots and history.” Her previous films, “Yuni,” “The Seen and Unseen,” and “The Mirror Never Lies,” have picked up a slew of festival awards and nominations around the world.

Film Movement’s president, Michael Rosenberg, described Andini as “one of the most promising Indonesian directors to emerge in recent years.” He added: “‘Before, Now & Then’ focuses on the particular hardships that women are forced to endure in the face of political unrest. Andini and her collaborators, specifically Happy Salma’s mesmerizing lead performance, have crafted a rich portrait of dignity in the face of loss and violence.”

A theatrical release in the first quarter of 2023 is planned, to be followed by a wide release via VOD.

Elsewhere, Deadline revealed exclusively that Chandler Levack’s video store-set dramedy “I Like Movies” has been picked up by Visit Films for worldwide distribution, excluding Canada, where Mongrel Media has the rights.

Marking Levack’s feature directorial debut, the film is set in Burlington, Ontario, in 2003, and follows hyper-ambitious teenage cinephile Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen, “Deadly Class”), who dreams of attending film school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

“In order to raise the hefty tuition fee, he gets his dream job at the local video store, Sequels,” reads the synopsis. “Wracked with anxiety about his future, Lawrence begins alienating the most important people in his life, including his best friend, Matt Macarchuck (Percy Hynes White), and his single mother, Terri (Krista Bridges, ‘Workin’ Moms’), all while developing a complicated friendship with his older female manager, Alana (Romina D’Ugo, ’12 Monkeys’).”

The film is set to have its world premiere at TIFF next month, where it will debut as part of the Discovery program.

Said Levack, “‘I Like Movies’ is based on my experiences working at a Blockbuster Video in Burlington, Ontario in the early 2000s, so it is no exaggeration when I say premiering my first feature at TIFF 22 is the single greatest achievement of my life.”

Levack’s narrative short “We Forgot to Break Up” screened at SXSW.