Formerly known as ‘Can a Song Save Your Life’, ‘Begin Again’, written and directed by John Carney, will close the 13th Tribeca Film Festival on April 26th. It will screen at BMCC Tribeca PAC.
Born in Dublin, John Carney is best known for his Oscar-winning musical ‘Once’, which was adapted into a multi Tony Award winning Broadway show. He also wrote and directed ‘The Rafters’ and ‘Zonad’, and wrote ‘On the Edge’. His next feature ‘Sing Street’ was recently pre-sold at the Berlin Film Festival (read about it here). It will commence production in Dublin this summer.
‘Begin Again’ generated much excitement at the Toronto Film Festival last September when the film initiated a bidding war over rights to the film. The international rights were eventually sold to The Weinsten Company Exclusive Media for $7 million with a $20 million P&A commitment for US rights. Weinstein Co will release the film in the USA in July.
Featuring a star-studded cast, ‘Begin Again’ sustains the theme of Carney’s love for music, which can be seen in ‘Once’ and the upcoming ‘Sing Street’, in a story about lost souls who meet and make music together. Carney describes the film as “a true New York story about the magical opportunities that can be found under thus great city’s bright lights.”
The film stars Keira Knightley and Adam Levine of Maroon 5 as a long-term couple who are songwriting partners as well as college sweethearts. They leave for NYC where Dave (Levine) lands a deal with a major label and his newfound fame causes him to stray from Gretta (Knightley).
Left on her own, Gretta’s luck changes when she meets a disgraced record label executive called Dan (played by Mark Ruffalo), who she sees performing on an East Village stage. She becomes so enraptured by his musical talent that she is determined to form a collaboration.
Jane Rosenthal, CEO and co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, says “This beautiful music-infused New York story encompasses the spirit of Tribeca where music, film and performance play such a key part of this year’s program.” Director-writer Carney says “I can’t think of a better place [for ‘Begin Again’] to have its US premiere than the Tribeca Film Festival.”
Other Irish features to be shown at Tribeca include ‘The Stag’, which has been renamed ‘The Bachelor Weekend’ for its US release, and ‘The Canal’, which will have its world premiere at the festival (read the full story here). Irish shorts ‘Scratch’, ‘Rubaí’ and ‘Incident Urbain’ are also scheduled to be screened as part of Tribeca (see here for more information).
The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival takes place April 16-27.
