IFC Films has scooped up the North American rights to Cooper Raiff’s “S—house,” the film that won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at the virtual 2020 SXSW Film Festival, the indie distributor announced Wednesday.
Raiff wrote, directed and starred in his feature debut about a tender college romance that has been compared to the early work of Richard Linklater or Lena Dunham.
IFC Films will release “S—house” in the fall of 2020.
Raiff stars in “S—house” alongside Dylan Gelula, Amy Landecker, Logan Miller and Olivia Welch and is the story of Alex, a friendless college freshman who is seriously contemplating transferring to a college closer to his mom (Landecker) and sister (Welch), to whom he is still extremely tethered. Everything changes one night when Alex takes a leap and attends a party at his campus’ party house ‘S—house,’ where he forges a strong connection with his RA, Maggie (Gelula).
“Independent film has an extraordinary new voice in Cooper Raiff, and we were completely won over by this honest and endearing debut. We look forward to releasing what will be the first film of a long and promising career for him,” Arianna Bocco, EVP of acquisitions and productions at IFC Films said in a statement.
“IFC Films is an amazing home for ‘S—house.’ So many of my favorite movies live there. I’m incredibly excited for them to be in charge of releasing our movie,” Raiff said in a statement.
Raiff, Divi Crockett and Will Youmans are producers on “S—house.”
IFC Films in its history has released three other films that have been prize winners at SXSW, including Dunham’s “Tiny Furniture,” Barry Jenkins’ “Medicine for Melancholy” and Joe Swanberg’s “Hannah Takes the Stairs.” IFC Films most recently released “The Trip to Greece,” “How to Build a Girl” and has had success at drive-in theaters with the horror film “The Wretched.” The distributor also recently acquired “My Salinger Year” and the debut film from director Dave Franco “The Rental.”
The deal for the film was negotiated by IFC Films’ EVP of acquisitions and productions Arianna Bocco and ICM Partners on behalf of the filmmaker.