As usual, the Sundance Film Festival this year had its share of buzzworthy films, but no movie was talked about more by people in Park City than Benh Zeitlin's "Beasts Of The Southern Wild." The debut feature from the helmer drew breathless praise, even as critics struggled to put into words the exact nature of the reportedly deeply evocative, Grand Jury prize-winning film. Our own A-grade review of the movie said it's "as unique as it is uneven, as unforgettable as it is uncomfortable, and trembles with the energy, bravura and passion of director Zeitlin, his cast and his crew like some rough animal snorting and stamping with horrible wonder and the possibility of both loss and understanding." Hell, yeah. And Fox Searchlight is wasting no time getting it in theaters.
Box Office Mojo (via /Film) has tweeted: "Fox Searchlight just scheduled Sundance sensation BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD for a limited bow on June 29, 2012." The summer slot seems to indicate that the studio is taking a page out of their "The Tree Of Life" playbook (indeed 'Beasts' has drawn numerous comparisons to Terrence Malick), and as we guessed in our Cannes prediction piece, we think the film is pretty much guaranteed to be making some kind of appearance on the Croisette. Our guess is that it'll make the Un Certain Regard category. And for those of you wondering, Cannes does sometimes relax their "premieres only" policy as they did in 2010 for "Blue Valentine."
Either way, for the rest of us who couldn't make it to Utah, we're excited to see the film and glad it's coming much sooner than expected.