Deadline says:
IFC’s Sundance Selects has landed North American rights to Bess Kargman’s documentary First Position, which offers a glimpse at six aspiring ballet dancers in training for a prestigious competition. The film bowed at last month’s Toronto International Film Festival and was first runner-up for best documentary, and has fest dates in Vancouver and the Hamptons planned. The deal was negotiated by Arianna Bocco and Betsy Rodgers for Sundance Selects with Josh Braun at Submarine on behalf of the filmmaker. The film also landed a six-figure pact with Hopscotch for distribution in Australia and New Zealand.
Deadline: As the debate over law enforcement tactics continues to build, Sundance Selects has acquired the North American rights to Killing Them Safely, director Nick Berardini’s documentary about Taser-related deaths. The film takes a close look at Taser International, the company which manufactures the eponymous electrical weapons marketed as a non-lethal alternative to guns. Weaving together testing footage and footage from real world use of the weapon, Killing Them Safely examines the lack of oversight and regulation, and the fatalities that have occurred as Taser use by law enforcement has proliferated dramatically. Sundance Selects will release the film on November 27.
Courtney of The Daily Rotation wrote, "While I can’t necessarily call myself a documentary nut, I do enjoy the occasional educational film, especially when it not only broadens my knowledge on a subject, but also entertains me in a way that a scripted, theatrical production would. Such was the case with the documentary First Position, a film about aspiring young ballet dancers. Though documentaries typically have the propensity to bore me to tears, there was something strikingly different about this one. Not necessarily in the aesthetics, but most certainly in the story that was told about the young people whose dreams of one day dancing for a prestigious ballet company hang in the balance of a five-minute performance."
