Sundance strikes again! The largest independent film festival in the United States, turned virtual instead of celebrating this year in its quintessential Park City, Utah setting, is ground zero for some of the year’s most anticipated movies. This year a long-awaited film adaptation turned out to be worth the wait: Nella Larsen’s 1929 novella Pass, filmed by acclaimed actress and new director Rebecca Hall and starring Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson, was one of the main draws of the festival. While the black and white film didn’t walk away with any of the festival’s 2021 awards, it has now won one of the season’s major distribution deals, reportedly $ 15.75 million from Netflix for worldwide distribution rights.
Deadline teased the takeover on Wednesday, noting, “The film is a true statement of female empowerment, with Hall making her main debut in Nella Larsen’s novella, and Thompson and Negga in powerful performances. Netflix entered a field of five bidders and will be doing one of the best prices for streaming releases with a theatrical distribution component. “
Set during the Harlem Renaissance, Pass is the story of childhood acquaintances Irene Renfield (Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Negga), both light-skinned black women who pursue white but take dramatically divergent paths. An accidental reunion adds to the drama, as a mutual curiosity turns into an obsession with catastrophic consequences. The film not only contains colorism and the extremely dangerous phenomenon of ‘passing’, but also explores white supremacy, queerness and the identity and mobility of the black class.
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The sale of the film, which premiered last Saturday as part of the US Dramatic Competition, which also includes André Holland, Alexander Skarsgård, Bill Camp, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and Ashley Ware Jenkins, was reportedly handled by Endeavor Content. Pass was produced by Hall, Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi and Margot Hand, with Thompson and Negga among the film’s executive producers. Other executive producers included Oren Moverman, Angela Robinson, Erika Hampson, Michael Y. Chow, Kevin A. Lin, Lauren Dark, Daniel Battsek, Ollie Madden, Brenda Robinson, Chaz Ebert, Yvonne Huff, Christopher Liu, Arcadiy Golubovich, Dori A. Rath, Joseph J. Restaino, David Gendron and Ali Jazayeri.
No news yet on when we can move Pass in our Netflix queues.