MADRID — New York-based independent distributor Monument Releasing, founded by Visit Film’ Ryan Kampe, has secured North American distribution rights to “Our Time,” from Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas, winner of Cannes Jury (“Still Light”) and Director (“Light After Darkness”) prizes.
Monument Releasing will open “Our Time” in cinema theaters in North America in June 2019, followed by a VOD and home entertainment release.
Struck with Michael Weber’s The Match Factory, the sales agent on the film, as well as one of its co-producers, the deal will give more outlets to a title which world premiered at last year’s Venice Festival, after Reygadas’ first four main features played Cannes.
“Our Time” turns on a couple who live on a ranch in , central Mexico, raising fighting bulls. Esther runs the ranch, Juan, a renown poet, raises the bulls. They have an open relationship, but Juan’s world is thrown out of kilter when Esther becomes infatuated with the estate’s horse trainer.
Shot for two years on a ranch in, with Reygadas lensing 50 hours of its surrounding nature, “Our Time” has Reygadas and his wife and editor Natalia Lopez playing Juan and Esther. But the film is neither autobiographical nor a self portrait, he has insisted, rather a vision of the lack of, and need for, human communication shot in context which records the beauty and brutality of nature.
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“Our Time” is produced by Jaime Romandia. The film is a production of Romamdia’s Mantarraya Productions and Reygadas’ NoDream Cinema, with The Match Factory, Denmark’s Snowglobe, Paris’ Luxbox, Norway’s Mer Films, Swedish regional fund Film i Väst, Mexico’s Detalle Films, and Geneva’s Bord Cadre Films co-producing.
“Theatrical projection is an essential element to complete the visual and auditory immersion of cinema. For me, the film was made with the intention of seeing it on a large screen in a large room that envelops the viewer in sound,” Reygadas said, Expressing his thanks at “Our Times” securing a U.S. theatrical release.
“Filmmaking which is based on individual vision rather than cliché has increasingly less space to exist in our current media environment,” he added.
“This is the main threat of the continuing growth of ‘small screen’ platforms. They not only kill the joy of going to the theater, but reduce all films to a clear lowest common denominator, as a product that may be paused, screened in the background, or even deserted. My gratitude to Monument Releasing and the film lovers who go beyond the fodder to keep the cinema tradition alive.”
Monument’s team called “Our Time” an “epic that anyone who has ever been in any type of relationship will identify with.”
“For one filmmaker to be able to breathe art into such an experience of humanity is incredible and we can’t wait to get an audience into theaters to see this masterpiece on a big screen”
Previous releases from Monument take in Mark Webber’s SXSW 2017 hit “Flesh and Blood”; “Metamorphoses,” Christophe Honoré modern retelling; Michel Franco’s Cannes best screenplay winner “Chronic” with Tim Roth outstanding as a palliative care worker; and Rolf de Heer’s Australian drama “Charlie’s Country,” which won David Gulpilil a best actor prize at Cannes Un Certain Regard.
