European buyers dig Bill Evans.
Distributors across Europe have snatched up Grant Gee’s experimental biopic Everybody Digs Bill Evans, starring Sentimental Value actor Anders Danielsen Lie as the legendary jazz pianist, following its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won best directing honors for Gee.
Mister Smith Entertainment, which is handling international sales on the project, inked deals for the film with UFO in France, Cinemaran in Spain, Wanted Cinema in Italy, Paradiso in Benelux, and Another World Entertainment in Scandinavia. Break Out Pictures previously acquired the title for release in the UK and Ireland.
Other international deals for the film include with Green Narae Media for South Korea, Front Row Entertainment for the Middle East, Shaw Organization in Singapore, Blitz in Ex-Yugoslavia, and The Film Group in Greece.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans traces Evans’ story from June 1961, when, after recording two seminal live albums with his original trio, tragedy struck. Evans’ beloved bassist and musical soulmate Scott LaFaro died in a car crash. Unable to imagine performing without him, Evans cancelled all his tour dates and sought refuge with his retired parents in Florida, where he struggled to get off drugs (he was a heroin addict) and find a reason to play again.
Centered on that period in Evans’ life, when he was unable to play, Gee’s film flashes forward to the 70s and 80s highlighting other moments of tragedy in the musician’s life. The 60s scenes are shot in stark black and white, the more modern sequences in garish color. Bill Pullman and Laurie Metcalf play Evans’ parents.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans is Gee’s feature debut, after acclaimed music documentaries Meeting People is Easy (1998) and Joy Division (2007). He co-wrote the script with Mark O’Halloran (Conversations with Friends), based on the book Intermission by Owen Martell. Janine Marmot of Hot Property Films produced the movie together with Alan Maher for Cowtown Pictures.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans is still searching for a U.S. distributor. Mister Smith Entertainment is co-repping U.S. rights with CAA.
