Wolfe Releasing acquires Alan Brown romance drama “Five Dances”

October 2, 2013 - 12:09 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Wolfe Releasing has acquired U.S. digital and DVD rights to Five Dances, a film set inside New York's highly competitive world of professional dance, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Director Alan Brown's intimate story will debut on VOD and DVD in 2014, following a limited theatrical release beginning Oct. 4.

The deal was brokered by Wolfe president Maria Lynn and Brown, who also partnered on Brown's previous feature, 2011's Private Romeo.

“Alan Brown is an enormously talented writer-director, and we’re thrilled to release his wonderful new film,” said Lynn in a statement.

Starring a quintet of real dancers, Five Dances follows Chip (newcomer Ryan Steele), an 18-year-old from Kansas who joins a small downtown dance company in Manhattan and forges friendships, advances his career and ultimately falls in love.

Five Dances made its debut as the opening night film at the 2013 Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center.

Alan Brown is an award winning American director and author.

Brown's first film, the half-hour narrative O Beautiful, won the Future Filmmaker Award at the 2002 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, and was an official selection of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

Brown's feature debut, Book of Love, which stars Simon Baker, Frances O'Connor, Gregory Smith, and Bryce Dallas Howard, was praised by critics for its "creepy eroticism and sly intelligence", and as "a movie that feels about as real as it's possible to be". It premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and was broadcast on Showtime, the Sundance Channel, and Starz.

His second feature film, Superheroes, the story of an Iraq War veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder, has been described by critics as "wrenching" and "brimming with rare compassion". It was the winner of numerous prizes, including the Feature Filmmaker’s Award at the 2007 Avignon/New York Film Festival, the Maverick Spirit Award at the 2008 Cinequest Film Festival, Special Jury Mention at the Austin Film Festival 2008, and both the Narrative Feature and Best Film Awards at the 2008 Brooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival.

Brown's third feature, Private Romeo is a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set in an all-male high school military academy. The film stars New York stage actors Seth Numrich, Matt Doyle, and Hale Appleman. Singled out by critics for being "hugely adventurous and highly liberated," Private Romeo was a New York Times Critics Pick and won a Grand Jury Prize at Outfest 2011.

Brown currently has several film projects in various stages of development, including Swan Lake, a thriller set in a small college town, and an adaptation of his novel Audrey Hepburn's Neck, which is set in Japan.