Berlin: Drafthouse Picks Up Nick Cave's '20,000 Days on Earth' for North America

The film premiered at Sundance, where it won both the best directing and best editing awards in the World Cinema Documentary category.

Drafthouse Films has acquired North American rights to semifictional film 20,000 Days on Earth, starring Nick Cave, from Hanway Films.

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s directorial debut premiered in January at Sundance, where it won the best directing and best editing awards in the World Cinema Documentary category. The pic will have its European premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is planning a theatrical release for the film this year.

Set to an original score by Cave and Warren Ellis, 20,000 Days on Earth is an intimate look at the artistic process that follows a fictional day in Cave's life.

The inventive pic, a Pulse Films/JW Films production, was produced by James Wilson and Dan Bowen with the support of Film4, Corniche Pictures amd the BFI.

“I am among many who consider Nick Cave the unofficial poet laureate of the modern age,” says Drafthouse Films founder Tim League in a statement. “While his music fans are already eagerly anticipating this release, I am personally excited to share this riveting portrait of a modern creative genius with a much wider audience.”

THR's critic David Rooney, who reviewed the film at Sundance, wrote: "What makes 20,000 Days on Earth distinctive is that it provides an overview of the man and his art while creating the illusion that this has come together organically -- out of poetic ruminations, casual encounters, ghost-like visitations and good old Freudian psychoanalysis."

The deal was negotiated by League and James Emanuel Shapiro on behalf of Drafthouse Films and Thorsten Schumacher, managing director at Hanway Films, for the producers.