February 15th, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY – (February 15, 2013) –Tribeca Film today announced it has concluded a deal with Protagonist Pictures to acquire all North American rights to Irish director Lenny Abrahamson’s drama What Richard Did – which swept  this past weekend’s Irish Film & Television Awards, taking home five IFTAs for Best Film, Best Director, Best Script, Best Actor and Best Editing.   

Newcomer Jack Reynor (to be seen in the upcoming Transformers sequel) and Róisín Murphy star alongside Sam Keeley (The Other Side of Sleep, Misfits), and Lars Mikkelsen (The Killing) in this striking portrait adapted from Kevin Powers’ award-winning book Bad Day in Blackrock. The world is bright and everything seems possible for Richard Karlsen, the golden boy of his privileged set of Dublin teens, until he does something that destroys it all and shatters the lives of the people closest to him. Featuring extraordinary performances from its largely young cast, What Richard Did is a quietly devastating study of a boy confronting the gap between who he thought he was and who he proves to be.

What Richard Did is the latest feature from Abrahamson, who established his place in independent Irish cinema with his award-winning feature film debut Adam & Paul. He is backed by his regular producer Ed Guiney and executive producer Andrew Lowe of Element Pictures, and the script is written by Malcolm Campbell (Skins, Shameless) recent winner of the Evening Standard Best Screenplay award. The film was funded by The Irish Film Board and Element Pictures, and opened in the U.K. earlier this year to widespread critical acclaim. 

Tribeca Film plans a theatrical Spring 2013 release day and date with on-demand platforms where it will be available in more than 40 million homes in the U.S. and Canada through a variety of video-on-demand offerings, as well as iTunes, Amazon Watch Instantly, VUDU, Xbox, Google Play and YouTube.

“Lenny Abrahamson has established himself as a dynamic voice among the superb Irish filmmaking community to emerge over the last couple of years,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises. “The performances and story in What Richard Did are going to make a star out of lead actor Jack Reynor and will also resonate universally with audiences.”

“I am really pleased that Tribeca are behind the release of my film in the US,” said Lenny Abrahamson. “They have proven themselves to be distributors of real taste and skill and I am very much looking forward to working with them on the release.”

The deal was negotiated for Tribeca Film by Nick Savva, Director of Acquisitions, and Protagonist Pictures’ CEO Mike Goodridge on behalf of the filmmakers.

Editor’s note: A film still can be accessed at the following link: http://media.tribecafilm.com/images/RichardDid2.jpg

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PRESS CONTACTS:

Tammie Rosen – Tribeca Enterprises, 212.941.2003, trosen@tribecaenterprises.com
Jennifer Holiner – Tribeca Film, 212.941.2038, jholiner@tribecafilm.com
Tahra Grant – Rubenstein Communications, 212.843.9213, tgrant@rubenstein.com