NEON Goes Worldwide With Amy Seimetz’s SXSW Fave SHE DIES TOMORROW

Curated by Screenmancer Staff
NEW YORK, NY(3/25/20): NEON announced today that they have acquired worldwide rights to Amy Seimetz’s apocalyptic existential thriller SHE DIES TOMORROW, an official selection of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Inadvertently prescient and blazingly original, the film was one of the most buzzed-about titles coming out of this year’s festival-that-never-was.

SHE DIES TOMORROW stars Seimetz’s frequent collaborator Kate Lyn Sheil (SUN DON’T SHINE) as Amy, a woman ravaged by the notion that she is going to die tomorrow which sends her down a dizzying emotional spiral. When Amy’s skeptical friend Jane (Jane Adams, HAPPINESS) discovers Amy’s feeling of imminent death to be contagious, they both begin bizarre journeys through what might be the last day of their lives. In equal measures a genre film, a dark comedy, and surrealist mind trip, SHE DIES TOMORROW defies definition and is the unique vision of Seimetz (SUN DON’T SHINE, “The Girlfriend Experience”).

SHE DIES TOMORROW had critics under its spell following screenings of the film, with Indiewire’s Eric Kohn noting that the film “combines classic David Cronenberg body horror and with the scathing surrealism of Luis Buñuel,” Screen Daily’s Tim Grierson calling the film “an enigmatic drama that flirts with psychological horror and absurdist comedy,” and RogerEbert.com’s Brian Tallerico praising the film as “brilliant, riveting,” among many other laudatory remarks from press.

NEON stated, “Amy Seimetz is a bold new voice and with the groundbreaking SHE DIES TOMORROW has easily created one of the most prescient films of the decade.  We’re thrilled to be able to bring this unique and incredible SXSW premiere to audiences all around the world.”

“I’m very proud to be joining the illustrious NEON family. Tom Quinn has impeccable taste and has also been at the forefront of innovative theatrical and digital distribution for many years. I look forward to collaborating with him and the entire NEON team on sharing SHE DIES TOMORROW with the world.”

SHE DIES TOMORROW is Amy Seimetz’ second feature film as a writer-director. SUN DON’T SHINE, her directorial debut, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in 2012, and was nominated for two Gotham Awards. In 2015, Seimetz co-created and executive produced the critically acclaimed Starz series “The Girlfriend Experience.” Among her other television work, Seimetz directed two episodes of the acclaimed FX series “Atlanta” in 2018.

SHE DIES TOMORROW is produced by Seimetz and Rustic Films’ trio David Lawson Jr., Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.  The film co-stars Kentucker Audley (SUN DON’T SHINE) and features cameo appearances by Chris Messina (ARGO), Katie Aselton (THE GIFT), Tunde Adebimpe (RACHEL GETTING MARRIED), Jennifer Kim (BLACK BEAR), Josh Lucas (FORD V FERRARI), Olivia Taylor Dudley (“The Magicians”), and Michelle Rodriguez (THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS).

Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal for NEON with XYZ Films’ Pip Ngo, on behalf of the filmmakers.  SHE DIES TOMORROW will be released by NEON, with release plans to be announced at a later date.

This is NEON…
A little less than 3 years since inception, NEON has garnered 12 Oscar nominations and grossed over $150M at the Box Office. It continues to push boundaries and take creative risks on bold cinema such as Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which made history winning four Academy Awards®, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture. The film, which also unanimously won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, has amassed over $53M at the domestic box office and broke multiple records including highest per screen average of the year and highest per screen average for a foreign language film of all time.

Other noteworthy NEON releases include: Double Oscar nominee Honeyland; Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, 2019’s highest grossing documentary with a worldwide gross of $16M; Tim Wardle’s Three Identical Strangers, winner of the Sundance Special Jury Award for Storytelling which surpassed $13M at the box office; and Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya, which garnered multiple Academy Award® nominations, one win for Allison Janney and amassed over $30M in domestic box office. The company continues to be an impressive force at festivals, with recent acquisitions such as Max Barbakow’s sought after Palm Springs starring Andy Samberg, which NEON acquired with Hulu, Josephine Decker’s Shirley starring Elisabeth Moss, and the documentary Gunda directed by Viktor Kossakovsky and executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix. 

Recent releases include: the critically acclaimed Cannes hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes® and Independent Spirit Awards; Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov’s award-winning and record-breaking Honeyland, which is the first non-fiction feature to land Academy Award® nominations for Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film in the same year; Alejandro Landes’ cinematic thriller Monos (the Colombian selection for the Academy Awards®); Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz‘s horror film The Lodge starring Riley Keough; Julius Onah’s Luce starring Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer; Tom Harper’s Wild Rose starring Jessie Buckley; John Chester’s The Biggest Little Farm; Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency starring Academy Award® Nominee Alfre Woodard; and the electrifying documentary about Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace.

After their successful collaboration on I, Tonya in January 2018, 30WEST (Dan Friedkin’s and Micah Green’s strategic venture) partnered with NEON’s Tom Quinn (Founder & CEO) and Tim League (Co-Founder) to become majority investors in the company.

Neon is here to visit.

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