Sundance Selects has set Ken Loach‘s Palme d’Or winner “I, Daniel Blake” for a Dec. 23 limited release with a multi-city expansion to follow, Variety has learned.
The film premiered in Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May, and ultimately claimed its top prize. It marked the second Palme d’Or of Loach’s career after 2006’s “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” making him one of just eight filmmakers to have won the prestigious honor twice.
“I, Daniel Blake” stars Dave Johns as the eponymous Blake, a middle-aged carpenter who requires state welfare after he suffers a heart attack and nearly falls from a scaffold. He’s joined by Katie (Hayley Squires), a single mother caught in similarly dire straights. Variety critic Owen Gleiberman called it “a work of scalding and moving relevance” in his Cannes review.
Sundance Selects — a sister label to IFC Films, both owned and operated by AMC Networks — has seen Oscar success in recent years with best actress nominations for Charlotte Rampling (“45 Years”) and Marion Cotillard (“Two Days, One Night”), as well as documentary recognition for films like “Dirty Wars,” “Finding Vivian Maier” and “How to Survive a Plague.”
