EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights to Rock Bottom Riser, a documentary that received a Special Mention from the Encounters jury at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival where it premiered earlier this month. It’s the first film by Fern Silva, who wrote, directed, and produced the documentary. Cinema Guild has slated it for a 35mm theatrical tour planned for 2022.
In the docu, Silva examines myriad encounters with an island world at sea. From the earliest voyagers who navigated by starlight to present-day astronomers scanning the cosmos for habitable planets, explorers have long made Hawaii the hub for their searching. Today, as lava continues to flow on the island, another crisis mounts as scientists plan to build the world’s largest telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s most sacred and revered mountain. The pic draws from subjects as seemingly disparate as the arrival of Christian missionaries and the controversial casting of Dwayne Johnson as King Kamehameha.
“Is it more important for a film to ask significant questions about what we’re doing here on this planet or is it better if it takes you for a ride?” Cinema Guild president Peter Kelly said. “Luckily, with Rock Bottom Riser, audiences don’t have to choose.”
Kelly brokered the rights deal with Silva.
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