Indie Films Opening April 17: ‘Lorne’, ‘Mother Mary’, ‘Amrum’, ‘Erupcja’

Focus Features is out with Morgan Neville’s documentary Lorne at 414 locations, a behind-the-scenes look at Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live and one of television’s most influential creative forces. The doc features rare footage and never-before-seen archival materials and wide-ranging conversations with some of SNL’s most influential cast members and writers, including Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock, among others. Focus and Neville have previously collaborated on Piece By Piece, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Limited releases: A24’s Mother Mary by David Lowery debuts in 5 theaters in New York and Los Angeles The LA locations (AMC Burbank, The Grove, Century City) will have the added benefit of premium large formats. Lowery is hosting sold-out opening weekend Q&As at Lincoln Square and Angelika in NY. The film (Deadline review here) stars Anne Hathaway as a troubled Madonna-style pop icon searching for spiritual answers and to rebuild her bond with Michaela Coel — whom she dropped as a costume designer and friend a decade earlier when stardom hit – for one last concert. With FKA Twigs and Hunter Schafer.

Janus Films opens Sophy Romvari’s acclaimed debut Blue Heron at IFC Center, adding LA on April 24 then expanding. The coming-of-age film premiered at Locarno and won the prestigious Rogers Best Canadian Film award. It’s top rated on Metacritic and at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (33 reviews).

In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behavior from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child. See Deadline’s interview with Romvari. Stars Eylul Guven, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes, and Amy Zimmer. Romvari is doing Q&As this weekend before a hometown Toronto Q&A moderated by David Cronenberg and a North American tour through Boston, San Francisco, Montreal, and Vancouver starting next week.

TIFF and Sundance-premiering Erupcja by Pete Ohs, from 1-2 Special, opens in NY and LA (Angelika and Nuart). A romantic vacation goes awry when a volcanic eruption strands (Charli xcx) and her soon-to-be fiancé (Will Madden) in Warsaw, Poland. She takes the explosive event as a sign to ditch her baggage, reunite with childhood friend (Lena Góra) and traipse becoming entangled in an emotional web that challenges her sense of self. Also stars Jeremy O. Harris. Q&As this weekend include Olivia Wild and Hari Nef. See Deadline interview with stars Will Madden and Lena Góra.

Kino Lorber opens Fatih Akin’s Amrum at the Quad in NYC. Premiered at the Cannes (see Deadline review). The latest by the German-Turkish filmmaker behind Venice Golden Bear winner Head-On (2004); Cannes Best Screenplay-winner The Edge of Heaven (2007); and Golden Globe-winner In the Fade (2017). Set in the waning days of WWII on the German island of Amrum, the synopsis reads, 12-year-old Nanning spends days working the farm and nights fishing. Despite the hardship, life on the windswept isle seems idyllic. When farmer Tessa mentions to Nanning that the war will soon be over, the boy, too young to understand the political implications, is pleased to imagine that his Nazi officer father might soon be coming home. But word of Germany’s imminent defeat sends his mother into decline, and as Nanning looks to his community for support, he learns that the true enemy is far closer than he imagined.

Stars Diane Kruger, Laura Tonke, Jasper Billerbeck, Lisa Hagmeister. Written by Akin and Hark Bohm. Adds the Laemmle Royal in LA next weekend.

Mad Bills To Pay from Oscilloscope, the feature debut of Joel Alfondo Vargas, opens in NYC at the Film Forum and Regal Concourse in the Bronx, the director ‘s hometown. Hailing from Sundance, it stars Juan Collado as Rico, hustling his way through the summer, selling nutties out of a beach cooler and chasing girls without a care in the world in his tight knit Dominican American community in the Bronx. But when his teenage girlfriend, Destiny (Destiny Checo), begins crashing at his place with his family, turning their small apartment into a stage for their messy, complicated young love, it’s only a matter of time before they’re hit with the sobering reality of growing up too fast in a city that waits for no one. With Yohanna Florentino, Nathaly Navarro.

Actor and author Ben McKenzie’s directorial debut Everyone Is Lying To You For Money from The Forge opens in New York ( IFC Center, Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn) and LA (Laemmle Royal, AMC Burbank). Based on the book McKenzie, known for his roles on The OC, Gotham and Southland, co-authored with Jacob Silverman, Easy Money, it traces his transition from acting to being an outspoken critic of the cryptocurrency industry. rolls out to Boston, DC, San Francisco, Austin, Portland, Seattle and Chicago and other markets in coming weeks. See Deadline’s interview with McKenzie from the Miami Film Festival.

More to come