“I Used to Be Darker” helmer to direct “Sollers Point” drama

PanARMENIAN.Net - Matt Porterfield, whose latest film “I Used to Be Darker” played at Sundance, will next direct “Sollers Point” with “American Honey’s” McCaul Lombardi and Jim Belushi. Paris-based the Bureau Sales has acquired international sales rights. Ryan Zacarias (“Mediterranea”), Alexandra Byer (“Dark Night”) and Jordan Mintzer (“Putty Hill”) are producing.

Porterfield’s fourth feature, “Sollers Point” will also star Jurnee Smollett-Bell (WGN’s “Underground”) and Marin Ireland (“Hell or High Water”). The helmer’s 2010 “Putty Hill” opened at Berlin’s Forum and later played at SXSW.

“Sollers Point” tells the story of Keith (Lombardi), a small-time drug dealer under house arrest at the home of his father (Belushi) in Baltimore. He re-enters a community scarred by unemployment, neglect and deeply entrenched segregation. There, he pushes back against his surrounding limitations as he tries to find a way out of his own internal prison.

Pic will begin shooting in late July. Gabrielle Dumon is co-producing at the Paris- and London-based Le Bureau (“45 Years”). Creative Capital in the U.S. and the CNC World Cinema Fund are backing “Sollers Point.” The Bureau Sales’ Cannes slate includes Vatche Boulghourian’s debut feature “Tramontane” and Andrew Haigh’s “Lean on Pete.”