Picturehouse Takes U.K. Rights to Jerry Rothwell’s ‘The Reason I Jump’
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Picturehouse Entertainment has picked up U.K. distribution rights for the Sundance prize-winning documentary “The Reason I Jump” from MetFilm Sales.
Picturehouse’s Clare Binns and Paul Ridd and MetFilm’s Vesna Cudic negotiated the deal following the film’s world premiere at last month’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award.
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Directed by Jerry Rothwell (“How to Change the World”), the poetic doc tackles the experiences of non-speaking autistic people, using various formal techniques to evoke their different perspectives. The film is freely adapted from the eponymous best-selling book by Naoki Higashida that was later translated into English by novelist David Mitchell.
While the original book took the form of a questionnaire filled out by non-verbal interviewees, this film adaption evokes the participants’ lived experience via textured sound design and cinematography along with other lyrical approaches.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be releasing this remarkable and important film,” says Clare Binns of Picturehouse. “This is an utterly unique and groundbreaking film providing an incredible insight into the world of autism. But the film is so much more than that as audiences will soon see.”
Jeremy Dear, Stevie Lee and Al Morrow produced the film. Executive producers were Stewart le Maréchal, Jonny Persey and Peter Webber, along with Lizzie Francke for the BFI, and Jody Allen, Paul G. Allen, Rocky Collins, Jannat Gargi, Ruth Johnston and Carole Tomko for Vulcan Productions.
Founded by Microsoft’s Paul G. Allen, Vulcan Productions focuses on socially conscious film and television projects, including subjects of human science. The late-businessman also founded the Allen Institute for Brain Science and contributed more than $500 million to the organization.
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