International sales agency The Open Reel has unveiled the first trailer for director-producer Quentin Lee’s “Last Summer of Nathan Lee.”
Inspired by a real life incident from Lee’s high school years, the film follows the titular Nathan Lee, a teenager who finds out that he has brain cancer just before he turns 18, vows to live the remains of his life with passion and refuses to die a virgin.
The cast includes Harrison Xu, Matthew Mitchell Espinosa, Natasha Tina Liu, Aaron Guest and Dru Perez. The film is produced by Lee’s Margin Films, with screenwriter Dennis Escobedo and casting director Kit DeZolt also serving as producers alongside Lee.
“Last Summer of Nathan Lee” will have its world premiere at The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM)’s CAAMFest 2023, which will take place from May 11 to 21.
Meanwhile, The Open Reel has also closed a number of sales on its slate titles. Valentin Merz’s 2022 Locarno winner “De Noche los Gatos son Pardos” has sold to TLA Releasing for North America, Tongariro Releasing for Poland and GM Films for Germany and Austria. Tongarino has also acquired Eyal Kantor’s “Like Me,” Maja Borg’s “Passion” and Riccardo Tamburini’s “A Dice with Five Sides.”
Marius Gabriel Stancu’s short “The Anniversary,” produced by The Open Reel, has sold to Breaking Glass Pictures for North America. JD Alcázar’s “8 Years” is sold to Portico Media for the South and Southeast Asian territories.
Quentin Lee’s first feature “Shopping For Fangs” (1997), co-directed with Justin Lin, premiered at Toronto and is one of the pioneering titles of the Asian American new wave. His subsequent features “Drift,” “Ethan Mao,” “The People I’ve Slept With,” “White Frog” and “The Unbidden” have played festivals worldwide.
Watch the trailer for “Last Summer of Nathan Lee” here: