Why U.S. Indie Distributor Utopia Is Dipping Its Toes Into U.K. Waters With ‘The Sweet East’
variety.comAlex Ritman Since its inception in 2018, North American distributer and sales outfit Utopia has been quietly building up its credentials as a both a company with a distinctive cinematic palette and one able to identify indie projects ahead of the buzz.
Its darkly comic 2020 breakout hit “Shiva Baby,” the directorial feature debut of Emma Seligman, gave an early indication of Utopia’s tastes, which soon led it to pick up Dasha Nekrasova’s wild and erotically-charged Jeffrey Epstein-themed horror “The Scary of Sixty-First” and Lena Dunham’s shoestring sex comedy “Sharp Stick.” In Cannes 2022 it made a splash by acquiring domestic rights to Ali Abbasi’s gritty Iranian crime thriller and Palme d’Or nominee “Holy Spider,” for which Zar Amir won the best actress award, and last year bought LGBT revenge thriller “Femme,” one of the hottest films going into the 2023 Berlinale.
But 2024 sees the company — founded by Robert Schwartzman and Cole Harper and with outposts in both New York and Los Angeles — cross the Atlantic with its first U.K.
release, the aptly titled “The Sweet East.” A surrealist satirical take on the American Dream and the directorial debut of cinematographer Sean Price Williams, “The Sweet East” — boasting an enviably red hot cast the includes Tania Ryder, Ayo Edebiri and Jacob Elordi — first bowed in the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar to positive reviews.
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