Good Deed Entertainment has acquired the North American distribution rights from Los Angeles Media Fund to Carlos López Estrada’s sophomore feature “Summertime,” the company announced on Wednesday.
The opening film of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, “Summertime” chronicles the intersecting stories of 25 young spoken word poets over a day in Los Angeles. Born of the director’s mind-blowing interaction with a workshop where performers from across the City of Angels recited fearlessly personal texts, the project was structured so that their voices could individually shine as well as coalesce in the context of a larger, unified, and gloriously moving narrative experiment — part urban musical and part sociological art.
TheWrap’s review of “Summertime” hailed the film as a striking new effort from a filmmaker who has impressively come into his own, López Estrada’s electrifying spoken-word fantasia distills the soul of a city often maligned for its shallowness into an ingenious revamping of its image as the diverse and exhilaratingly messy realm it is. Reveling in redefined hometown pride, this group of storytellers offers us passionate youth; we welcome it too, and the result is a rapturous whirlwind of truth.
Estrada directed “Summertime” from a script written by 27 Get Lit poets, who also star in the film, and playwright Dave Harris. “Summertime” is the second film from Estrada after the critically acclaimed “Blindspotting.”
In addition to producing, Los Angeles Media Fund fully financed “Summertime.” UTA Independent Film Group packaged and sold the domestic rights to the film.
Get Lit is a Los Angeles non-profit organization that utilizes spoken word poetry to increase literacy, empower the youth, and inspire communities. Their poetry curriculum is taught in over 100 schools and reaches thousands of high school students every year.
Good Deed’s Kristin Harris and Robbie Chernow brokered the deal with UTA on behalf of the filmmakers.
López Estrada is represented by UTA and attorneys Ziffren Brittenham.