Music Box Films Nabs North American Rights to Sundance Prize Winner ‘Leonor’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comChristopher Vourlias Music Box Films has acquired the North American rights to writer-director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s genre-bending “Leonor Will Never Die,” which won the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit in Sundance this year after premiering in the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition.The film tells the story of Leonor Reyes, once a major player in the Filipino film industry during its ragtag action cinema glory days, but now in her golden years and struggling to pay her bills.
When she reads an advertisement for a screenplay contest, Leonor begins tinkering with an unfinished script about a young man avenging his brother’s murder at the hand of thugs.But after a falling television knocks her unconscious and sends her into a coma, Leonor finds herself inside her incomplete movie, re-writing and editing on the fly in a fantastical bid to complete the film while her body lies in limbo.
Variety‘s Amy Nicholson described Escobar’s “playful” debut as “creative and clever,” noting: “Leonor’s adventures in the film within the film — ‘Ang Pagbabalik ng Kwago,’ or ‘The Return of Kwango’ — play like an affectionate sendup of cornball heroics.
The punches whiff, the sound effects are clumsy, and the score by Alyana Cabral and Pan De Coco is deadpan hysterical. But Escobar is after something deeper than parody.
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