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Miramax will partner with Roadside Attractions for the domestic theatrical release of the the doc from director Kevin Macdonald. Miramax has acquired U.S. rights to Kevin Macdonald's forthcoming documentary Whitney, which centers on the life and career of Whitney Houston. Miramax, which also acquired distribution rights for Latin America and China, will partner with Roadside Attractions for the domestic theatrical release of the doc. WME Global negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers.

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Roadside Attractions founders and co-presidents, Howard Cohen and Eric d'Arbeloff, sat down with THR ahead of the French film festival to discuss their key demographic, why premium VOD is a dumping ground and how a dinner resulted in getting Lawrence cast in "Hunger Games."

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Amazon has tapped Roadside Attractions to handle the theatrical distribution of “Manchester by the Sea,” sources tell Variety. The partners will debut the film on Nov. 18, in the heart of awards season. A platform release is planned, with the film gradually adding theaters and markets. “Manchester by the Sea” should expand nationwide at some point in mid-December.

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The trailer for "Southside With You", the upcoming historical romcom (romcom? bioromcom?) about Barack and Michelle Obama’s “epic first date across Chicago’s south side,” was released today, and it looks incredibly charming. Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyer star as the First Couple when they were just a Potential Couple—they see Do the Right Thing, they talk about how they fit into the world, and (most importantly) they have their first kiss after sharing an ice cream cone.

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Sometime in the 1790s, Jane Austen wrote a wickedly funny epistolary novella about a widow named Lady Susan, whose beauty and charm are matched only by her cunning ability to manipulate the doting men around her. Austen never tried to publish it. The novella, “Lady Susan,” was finally released more than 50 years after her death, but the story never really caught on with devotees of her other, more famous works.

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In the summer of 1989, the 28-year-old legal intern Barack Obama had the audacity to hope that his senior colleague Michelle Robinson would say “Yes we can” to a first date. Though the future first lady would later debate the technical precision of the word “date,” she did elect to meet this bold young man on a Saturday afternoon. That meeting turned into an all-day ramble through Chicago, from the Art Institute to a screening of “Do the Right Thing,” and now it has been turned into an improbably moving movie.

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Love & Friendship, the new film by Metropolitan writer-director Whit Stillman, is the latest in a long tradition of cinematic Jane Austen adaptations. But this movie of manners and romance, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny, is unlike before it.

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“You and I share a lot of the same interests.” And eventually they’d share the title of America’s First Couple. Here’s the first trailer for Southside With You, the story of the first date — “This is not a date” — of Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson on a summer’s day in 1989 Chicago. Suffice it so say, things went well.

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Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions are teaming up to bring Whit Stillman’s “Love & Friendship to the masses, Variety has confirmed. Amazon has landed domestic rights to the adaptation of an unpublished Jane Austen story, and brought in Roadside as the film’s theatrical distributor. The film centers on a socially disgraced widow who takes up residence with her in-laws.

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Max Perkins was surrounded by literary geniuses, but he had something to do with that. Perkins was a revered senior editor at Scribner’s Sons in the late 1920s, with a stable of writers named Hemingway and Fitzgerald. A sprawling, unwieldy, 1,000-page manuscript from an unknown writer lands on his desk after it’s been rejected all around town. But Perkins sees something special beneath the weight of excessive prose and seeks out the author. His name is Thomas Wolfe and the book will become Look Homeward Angel.

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EXCLUSIVE: "Southside With You", the film that chronicles the first date between future U.S. President Barack Obama and future First Lady Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, is near closing with Miramax in a North American rights deal around $2 million. They are finishing the deal in Berlin tonight, sources tell me, and they’ll release in partnership with Roadside Attractions.

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The Critics’ Choice Awards announced nominations for the 2016 ceremony on Monday, with “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Fargo” leading the way. Hosted by T.J. Miller, the awards will be held on Jan. 17 at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. It will air simultaneously on A&E, Lifetime and LMN.

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For the second year in a row, the Film Independent Indie Spirit Award nominations were leaked in advance of their announcement. Last year, it was because PR Newswire broke the embargo. This year Film Independent is blaming a technical glitch. Film Independent promised that the same mistake would not happen this year. The nominees were scheduled to be announced at 10AM PST.

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