Director Sophie Barthes (“Madame Bovary”) futuristic comedy/drama “The Pod Generation” has been acquired by Roadside Attractions and Vertical after the feature’s Sundance debut back in January.
The feature follows Emilia Clarke’s Rachel and her partner Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an upscale New York couple living in a future world where natural childbirth is considered passe. When Rachel gets a coveted position at the city’s Womb Center, where children are birthed in egg-like pods, the couple decides to go on a journey towards parenthood that asks the question of what “natural childbirth” truly is.
“Today, every filmmaker dreams to have a theatrical release. Roadside Attractions and Vertical have made this dream possible,” Barthes said in a statement. “The Pod Generation could not have found a better home, with such a dedicated, innovative and experienced team. I’m thrilled to start this adventure with a team truly in love with cinema and share with audiences on a large screen the playful and puzzling futuristic world we created.”
Roadside Attractions’ co-presidents Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff also commented that Barthes “has an extraordinary ability to create films that use alternate realities to hold a mirror to the way we live now and where we may be in the not-to-distant future. Emilia and Chiwetel deliver incredible performances balancing humor and heart portraying a couple at odds with the path the Big Tech Overlords have set for them.”
“The Pod Generation” went on to win Sundance’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Award, given to a project that depicts science and technology as a theme. TheWrap’s Steve Pond called the feature, “an elegant satire on the rise of AI, the dehumanization of life and the thorny issues of reproductive rights” in his review out of the festival.
The film is produced by Geneviève Lemal, Yann Zenou, Nadia Kamlichi and Martin Metz. Executive producers are Clarke, Barthes, David Bensadoun, Paul Nelson, Adrian Politowski, Nessa McGill, Sierra Garcia, Nathanaël Karmitz, and Beniamin Mincu.
“The Pod Generation” is set to receive a theatrical release in summer 2023.
