‘Landline’ & Indie Distribution’s Changing Tides

When it comes to mounting quintessential auterish independent films on the big screen today, chances are that OddLot Entertainment is there. The company co-founded by Gigi Pritzker has produced and co-financed such titles as this year’s awards season contender Hell or High Water, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and this year’s Sundance entry Landline from Obvious Child filmmaker Gillian Robespierre.

Booked in the U.S. Dramatic section at the Sundance Film Festival, Landline follows two young sisters Dana (Jenny Slate) and Ali (Abby Quinn) at wit’s end who learn of their father’s affair and try to expose it, while keeping it from their all-too composed mother. The family drama is splashed against the New York City 1990s scene.

“We got collectively excited about Gillian Robespierre as a filmmaker,” says OddLot’s president of production Rachel Shane after the duo saw the filmmaker’s directorial debut 'Obvious Child'. 

“We were able to buy a pitch from her on essentially one line and developed the script and that one line was divorce,” adds Shane.

In addition here at Deadline’s Sundance studio, Pritzker and Shane speak about the changing tides in indie film distribution and how filmmakers should be embracing the technology given its opportunity.

That said, Shane adds “We should not be watching these films on phones necessarily.”

OddLot Entertainment is a division of Madison Wells.