The movie adaptation of “Where the Crawdads Sing” in development at Sony has found a director, “First Match” filmmaker Olivia Newman, an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.
Newman will direct the film at Sony based on Delia Owens’ New York Times bestselling novel from 2018 and a screenplay from Oscar nominee Lucy Alibar.
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Elizabeth Gabler’s 3000 Pictures are producing the film. Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter are producing for Hello Sunshine, and Gabler, Erin Siminoff and Aislinn Dunster are overseeing the project for 3000 Pictures.
Also Read: Reese Witherspoon to Star in Pair of Netflix Rom-Coms
Set against the backdrop of the mid-20th century South, “Where the Crawdads Sing” centers on a young woman named Kya who, abandoned by her family, raises herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. However, when her former boyfriend is found dead, Kya is thrust into the spotlight,...
Newman will direct the film at Sony based on Delia Owens’ New York Times bestselling novel from 2018 and a screenplay from Oscar nominee Lucy Alibar.
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Elizabeth Gabler’s 3000 Pictures are producing the film. Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter are producing for Hello Sunshine, and Gabler, Erin Siminoff and Aislinn Dunster are overseeing the project for 3000 Pictures.
Also Read: Reese Witherspoon to Star in Pair of Netflix Rom-Coms
Set against the backdrop of the mid-20th century South, “Where the Crawdads Sing” centers on a young woman named Kya who, abandoned by her family, raises herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. However, when her former boyfriend is found dead, Kya is thrust into the spotlight,...
- 7/21/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
A teenager in still-ungentrified Brooklyn finds an unlikely way of connecting to her ex-con father in Olivia Newman's First Match: Having learned her dad's wrestling moves as a kid, she muscles her way onto her school's all-male team and proves she's made of the same stuff. Built around an impressive performance by relative newcomer Elvire Emanuelle, the drama recalls Karyn Kusama's Girlfight, though in that case the parental dynamics ran the opposite direction. The feature debut, an outgrowth of Newman's 2010 short of the same name, took home SXSW's Audience Award; with that and the Grand Jury Award given to...
- 4/6/2018
- by John DeFore
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Following its Audience Award–winning debut at this year’s SXSW Festival, the coming of age sports drama “First Match” is now available to stream on Netflix. Directed by Olivia Newman, and starring Elvire Emanuelle as a teenage girl in foster care who joins an all-boys wrestling team to connect with her father, First Match is another in a long and impressive list of breakout independent features that were initially developed as short films.
Newman first tackled this story while a film student at Columbia in 2010 (you can watch that version here) before eventually expanding it into her acclaimed directorial debut, which you can watch here on Netflix. Newman translated the naturalistic and intimate feel of the short with help from Dp Ashley Connor’s lyrically expressive handheld camerawork and backed by a largely female crew. In fact, 60% of the crew was female, and 75% of the department heads were female.
Newman first tackled this story while a film student at Columbia in 2010 (you can watch that version here) before eventually expanding it into her acclaimed directorial debut, which you can watch here on Netflix. Newman translated the naturalistic and intimate feel of the short with help from Dp Ashley Connor’s lyrically expressive handheld camerawork and backed by a largely female crew. In fact, 60% of the crew was female, and 75% of the department heads were female.
- 4/4/2018
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
Against the field of all narrative films at this year’s recently concluded SXSW, Netflix’s small but worthwhile First Match emerged as the winner of the Audience Award competition. That seems appropriate since this engaging film about a largely abandoned young African American girl who joins the boys wrestling team at her Brooklyn high school is about someone who triumphs against all odds. But as I say in my video review above, it doesn’t follow the typical pattern of most underdog Hollywood sports movies, and we are the better for it.
At its heart it really is a father-daughter story, but also not typical in that family genre. Based on writer-director Olivia Newman’s 2011 short film, the first-time feature helmer has expanded it and gone much deeper into the world of her lead character Monique (Elvire Emanuelle). When we first meet her she is being tossed out once...
At its heart it really is a father-daughter story, but also not typical in that family genre. Based on writer-director Olivia Newman’s 2011 short film, the first-time feature helmer has expanded it and gone much deeper into the world of her lead character Monique (Elvire Emanuelle). When we first meet her she is being tossed out once...
- 4/2/2018
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
The premise of “First Match,” lamentably, is an all-too-believable one. Fifteen-year-old Monique (Elvire Emanuelle), a foster kid in ungentrified Brooklyn, makes impulsive mistake after impulsive mistake until she ends up getting beaten up and bloody for money. When we meet her, she’s in the process of being kicked out of her latest home for sleeping with her foster dad. Craving the approval of her own father, the just-paroled Darrel (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, “The Get Down”), Monique joins the wrestling team in a bid for his affection. Seeing his own athletic potential flickering in his daughter, Darrel decides to cash...
- 3/30/2018
- by Inkoo Kang
- The Wrap
If coming-of-age stories feel so familiar, it’s largely because we all have one of our own. That’s not to absolve the genre of its many clichés (most of which are considerably older than the characters who tend to embody them), but rather to emphasize their inevitability. Everyone grows up, everyone discovers themselves, and everyone feels like they’re pioneering uncharted territory when they do it. By nature, these are movies that prioritize the journey over the destination — it doesn’t matter if you can tell where they’re going so long as you can believe how they get there.
You believe everything about Monique (a brilliant Elvire Emanuelle). Where she’s going, where she’s been, how she plans to navigate between the two. And while it can be somewhat frustrating that such a vibrant and singularly well-realized heroine should have to grapple with some of the tired...
You believe everything about Monique (a brilliant Elvire Emanuelle). Where she’s going, where she’s been, how she plans to navigate between the two. And while it can be somewhat frustrating that such a vibrant and singularly well-realized heroine should have to grapple with some of the tired...
- 3/13/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
In Netflix’s forthcoming drama First Match, rising star Elvire Emanuelle plays Monique, a teenage girl from Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood who builds a tough skin through all her years of foster care. After reaching out with her estranged father (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) she decides that wrestling is the only way to connect with him — but she isn’t wrestling other girls. She’s wrestling boys…and she’s really good at it. The Emanuelle and Abdul-Mateen joined us in the…...
- 3/13/2018
- Deadline
“Put her in her place, man,” says an onlooker just as the Brooklyn teenage girl at the center of First Match makes her move into the world of boys wrestling. This trailer for the Netflix film, bowing at the SXSW festival before hitting Netflix later this month, shows that the girl won’t go down without a fight. Starring newcomer Elvire Emanuelle, writer-director Olivia Newman’s first feature began as a short film at the 2011 New York Film Festival, then worked its way…...
- 3/9/2018
- Deadline TV
“Put her in her place, man,” says an onlooker just as the Brooklyn teenage girl at the center of First Match makes her move into the world of boys wrestling. This trailer for the Netflix film, bowing at the SXSW festival before hitting Netflix later this month, shows that the girl won’t go down without a fight. Starring newcomer Elvire Emanuelle, writer-director Olivia Newman’s first feature began as a short film at the 2011 New York Film Festival, then worked its way…...
- 3/9/2018
- Deadline
"This is her fight." Netflix has debuted the official trailer for an indie drama titled First Match, which is premiering at the SXSW Film Festival this month. This is the feature directorial debut of Olivia Newman, adapting her own 2010 short film after going through the Sundance Director's Lab. First Match stars Elvire Emanuelle as a determined teenage girl from Brooklyn who decides to join an all boys' wrestling team at her high school, causing more trouble than she may be prepared to handle. Also starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Colman Domingo, Jharrel Jerome, & Jared Kemp. This looks great! Really, really great. The footage looks emotional yet raw and real, powerful yet still heartwarming, I'm looking forward to this. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Olivia Newman's First Match, direct from YouTube: Hardened by years in foster care, a teenage girl named Monique (Elvire Emanuelle) from Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood decides...
- 3/9/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film — past, present, and future.
While Hollywood continues to struggle towards parity in the director’s chair, the film festival world is playing major catch-up. At this year’s SXSW Film Festival, the push towards parity is becoming more of a reality than ever before, as 33% of all feature films at the fest are directed by women, while the shorts section boasts 59% female directorship across its slate. It’s a stark difference to the studio side of the industry.
The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s latest study, “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair? Gender, Race & Age of Directors across 1,000 films from 2007-2017,” found that, of the 109 film directors associated with the 100 top movies of 2017, 92.7 percent were male; 7.3 percent were female. Days later, the San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film followed with the “Celluloid Ceiling” study,...
While Hollywood continues to struggle towards parity in the director’s chair, the film festival world is playing major catch-up. At this year’s SXSW Film Festival, the push towards parity is becoming more of a reality than ever before, as 33% of all feature films at the fest are directed by women, while the shorts section boasts 59% female directorship across its slate. It’s a stark difference to the studio side of the industry.
The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s latest study, “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair? Gender, Race & Age of Directors across 1,000 films from 2007-2017,” found that, of the 109 film directors associated with the 100 top movies of 2017, 92.7 percent were male; 7.3 percent were female. Days later, the San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film followed with the “Celluloid Ceiling” study,...
- 3/9/2018
- by Kate Erbland, Jenna Marotta, Jude Dry and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
With Sundance 2018 wrapped up, the next major American festival is South by Southwest Film Festival and today they’ve announced their lineup. Opening with John Krasinski’s horror film A Quiet Place, it also includes some of our most-anticipated films of the year: Jody Hill’s Observe & Report follow-up The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter (which Netflix has announced they’ll release), Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls, and Julia Hart’s Miss Stevens follow-up, the sci-fi film Fast Color (pictured above) starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Check out the lineup below for the festival that takes place March 9-18 in Austin. It also includes many Sundance 2018 titles, and you can see our reviews of those here.
Narrative Feature Competition
Ten world premieres; ten unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,408 narrative feature submissions in 2018.
Family
Director/Screenwriter: Laura Steinel
When an emotionally stunted 30 year-old woman is tasked...
Check out the lineup below for the festival that takes place March 9-18 in Austin. It also includes many Sundance 2018 titles, and you can see our reviews of those here.
Narrative Feature Competition
Ten world premieres; ten unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,408 narrative feature submissions in 2018.
Family
Director/Screenwriter: Laura Steinel
When an emotionally stunted 30 year-old woman is tasked...
- 2/1/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The SXSW Conference and Festivals has announced its features lineup and opening night film, plus a selection of episodic titles for the 25th edition of the Film Festival, running this March in Austin, Texas. This year’s festival will open with John Krasinski’s Paramount-produced “A Quiet Place,” playing as part of the festival’s Headliners section. Elsewhere, the film lineup is stacked with a number of offerings from female filmmakers, including its Narrative Feature Competition, which includes eight films (out of ten) directed or co-directed by women, from Megan Griffiths’ “Sadie” to Stacy Cochran’s “Write When You Get Work.”
Other sections of the festival also include a heavily female bent, including three films in the Headliners section (which currently includes five titles), and the Narrative Spotlight section, which includes new films from Lynn Shelton, Miranda Bailey, Julia Hart, and Suzi Yoonessi. Those titles are joined by a slew of other SXSW regulars,...
Other sections of the festival also include a heavily female bent, including three films in the Headliners section (which currently includes five titles), and the Narrative Spotlight section, which includes new films from Lynn Shelton, Miranda Bailey, Julia Hart, and Suzi Yoonessi. Those titles are joined by a slew of other SXSW regulars,...
- 1/31/2018
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
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