EXCLUSIVE: When Sumerian’s content chief Rob Williams saw Josephine at the Sundance Film Festival he knew it was special. He quickly got on the phone to company founder Ash Avildsen and told him he needed to see it right away.
Avildsen trusted his recently instated lieutenant. He got in his car and drove the best part of 40 miles from Park City to Salt Lake City to catch another screening. He wasn’t disappointed.
“I haven’t cried like that in a theater in quite some time,” Avildsen tells us. “Not multiple times.”
“It was an incredible film with a beautiful third act. So many festival films have bleak endings, but this was so well done. I crave the emotional impact of cinema, especially the theatrical experience. Josephine did that so well.”
Beth de Araújo’s hard-hitting sophomore feature stars Gemma Chan, Channing Tatum and newcomer Mason Reeves as the eponymous 8-year-old who witnesses a terrible crime in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Inspired by Araujo’s own personal trauma, the film instantly became one of the main talking points in Sundance.
Avildsen knew he had to move fast.
“I got on our group text with our team and told them I thought it was a masterpiece. I said we have to try as hard as we can to get it.”
What ensued was one of the more unlikely and invigorating deals to have been triggered in Park City in recent years.
Multiple major buyers were in for the movie and the bidding went up and up as the buzz grew for the film, which went on to win Sundance’s Audience and Grand Jury Prize.
The domestic asking price ultimately topped out at a hefty $6M. To many people’s surprise, Sumerian, a newcomer to those lofty acquisition heights, had come out on top in a deal that was announced two weeks later during the Berlin Film Festival, where the movie had its international premiere.
While some industry vets scratched their heads as to who Sumerian Pictures was, and how it arrived at that price point, the deal was probably a fitting coda to the final Park City Sundance, a festival whose lore has been characterised by underdog success stories and the launch of new indie voices.
“The partnership between Josephine and Sumerian was in ways serendipitous. It took the filmmakers a long time to get the film made and it faced various challenges. It was an underdog production and an underdog story to have a young child actor with no credits be the lead and then to deliver it like they did,” says Avildsen.
Journey
Ash Avildsen (courtesy) & Rob Williams (cr: Reynaldo Rosales)
Sumerian is better known as a music company. Avildsen founded Sumerian Records twenty years ago, aged only 24, from his Venice Beach apartment. It started out as an underground label but has grown to rep a host of successful indie, metal and alt rock bands and artists including Bad Omens, The Smashing Pumpkins, Animals As Leaders and Poppy.
The company branched out in 2022 by buying comic book and video game publisher Behemoth Entertainment. But film and TV had always been in Avildsen’s DNA, being the son of Oscar-wining Rocky director John G Avildsen, also famous for The Karate Kid franchise. Ash spoke movingly about his estrangement and then reunion with his father on a recent podcast hosted by O’Shea Jackson.
Ash himself has directed three movies: 2017’s American Satan, boxing biopic Queen Of The Ring, and he’s in post on Rob Lowe crime-comedy My New Friend Jim. He also created 2021 TV series Paradise City.
The company began planning proper film distribution last year. Williams was hired in October to lead the charge, and Josephine is the company’s biggest splash to date.
“Sometimes, when you’re a new company, you have to show people you can step up,” explains Williams, the former Participant and Netflix exec who negotiated the acquisition with WME Independent, CAA Media Finance, and Emanuel Nunez of producer Kinematics.
While their offer was aggressive, the deal wasn’t done in a numbers vacuum. Before the pact was finalized, Sumerian’s leaders had multiple talks with the filmmakers (including It Follows and Short Term 12 producer David Kaplan) about how the company would position a film that some were already describing as the first of the 2027 awards season.
When it emerged that Sumerian had beaten out a handful of more experienced players (“Who knew they were at that level?” one bigger buyer mused to us at the time), there were some on social media who questioned whether the company could handle a bona fide Academy Awards contender, something both Avildsen and Williams see in the film.
“We won’t be cutting any corners with the personnel and companies that we’ll collaborate with to fully support Josephine”, Avildsen responds. “It’s not a one or two person army we’re putting together to work on any film, but especially not this one. This is the flagship film for the entire year for the company.”
Avildsen is no stranger to being doubted. “My whole career, I’ve thrived on that. We’re an underdog company. When we started the music label in 2006 Spotify didn’t even exist and piracy was huge. Physical sales were dying and the whole sentiment of the record label business was like ‘it’s over’. That was just fuel for me. It’s the same with films for Rob and I. We’re passionate, hungry, and motivated, and we understand the value in being higher up on a company’s priority list than languishing at a much bigger company where you’re not such a priority. Once we commit, we’re going to deliver.”
The Sumerian labels have grown to around 30 full time staff and a dozen part-timers. More hires are expected in coming months as the company bolsters the film distribution operation.
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What changed at the company for it to be able to afford the splash on Josephine and the push into distribution?
“If you know the company, you know where it’s money is from,” one insider told us during the bidding war.
“We’re a fully independent company that takes chances on art,” explains Avildsen. “Because recorded music has finally gained real value again, we’re able to take those chances, whether that’s on a comic book, a musician or an indie movie.”
“We’re not backed by institutional money”, he continues. “We’re not at the whim of private equity, VC money or being pubicly traded. I’m not looking for an exit. I’m looking for an entrance. I don’t want to sell up, go sit on a beach and mix drinks all day. I wake up with purpose and excitement. We’ve got more things to do.”
The timing also speaks to external changes. Gaps in the market have emerged following the loss, and waning acquisitions appetite, of multiple traditional and/or streamer buyers. Sumerian is one of a handful of new domestic players to have emerged in the past 12 months.
On the release docket for Sumerian Pictures in 2026 are Toronto Film Festival music dramedy Mile End Kicks, which gets its U.S. premiere this week at SXSW; Tribeca duo The Wolf, The Fox And The Leopard and Wolfgirls; and acclaimed Czech film Broken Voices, which was picked up out of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won a Best Actress special mention.
Josephine is expected to play at other festivals this summer and fall before a likely release later this year. Signalling that they don’t intend to be a flash in the pan, Sumerian followed up that deal with the acquisiton of another Sundance film in the shape of offbeat comedy The Incomer, starring Domhnall Gleeson.
“We’re encouraged by the quality and marketability of our films and we’re seizing the moment,” says Williams.
The company will look to release around seven films this year and will acquire out of festivals and markets. SXSW and Cannes are both in their sights. Foreign language films, documentaries, cross pollination with their music artists, and more producing are all on the table.
“We’ll be at every major festival, scouting and hoping to discover great films whether they are led by new actors and filmmakers or include big name talent,” confirms Avildsen.
Could they take another Josephine sized swing this year?
“Never say never,” he gleams. “But we’ll be very selective. If we were to swing that big again this year, we’d have to be blown away by it. We’re very happy with the big swing we took.”