Two SXSW-Awarded Films Among 70 From Canceled Festivals To Be Screened For Sales Agents, Distributors By Stage 32

Online platform Stage 32 is rolling out a screening series starting Tuesday to highlight filmmakers and films impacted by cancellations or postponement of festivals to a network of industry executives and professionals.

The 70-plus films include Best Summer Ever with Maggie Gyllenhall and documentary Echoes of the Invisible, respectively the Final Draft Screenwriting and Zeiss Cinematography Award-winners from SXSW.

Stage 32 said it’s invited thousands of sales agents, distributors, financiers, managers, agents and development executives who have worked with the company over the last nine years onto the new platform. Filmmakers can choose whether to screen publicly to Stage 32’s global community of over 600,000 members worldwide or just to the professionals vetted by Stage 32. Screening privately will not affect a filmmaker’s screening eligibility for other festivals and there is no fee to participate. The goal is to get the displaced works in front of a global audience of decision makers that can help further careers and find sales and distribution solutions.

“Stage 32 Screenings was born out of a need to help filmmakers impacted by global festival cancellations. … If we’re being truthful, we have no idea when festivals will begin ramping up again and these filmmakers have created incredible films that deserve to be seen. Our platform is uniquely situated and equipped not only to screen these films but to do so to a concentrated, global audience of decision makers,” said Stage 32 CEO Richard Botto.

Best Summer Ever, which also stars Peter Saarsgard, Shannon DeVido​and and Benjamin Bratt, is a musical about a young couple who unexpectedly find themselves at the same high school following a summer romance. It was made with a fully integrated cast and crew of people with and without disabilities. Written by Michael Parks Randa, Will Halby, Terra Mackintosh, Andrew Pilkington and Lauren Smitelli.

Echoes of the Invisible, directed by Steve Elkins, follows explorers’ journeys to the most extreme environments on Earth.