I just came online to some exciting news, Dianna fans! Quiver has acquired Dianna’s upcoming film ‘As They Made Us‘ (originally ‘As Sick as They Made Us’), and it is set for release in theaters and on VOD on April 8. That means we get Dianna back on our big screens in just two months – make sure to save the date! You can read the Deadline exclusive below.

DEADLINE EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution has acquired Mayim Bialik’s feature directorial debut As They Made Us, starring Diana Agron (Shiva Baby, Glee), Simon Helberg (Annette, The Big Bang Theory), Oscar nominee Candice Bergen (Let Them All Talk, Starting Over) and two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman (The Meyerowitz Stories, Rain Main), slating it for release in theaters and on VOD on April 8.

The dysfunctional family dramedy written and directed by the former Big Bang Theory star follows Abigail (Agron), a divorced mother of two, who is struggling to balance the dynamic forces within her dysfunctional family as she attempts to cultivate new love.

Justin Chu Cary (Blindspotting, Black Summer), Charlie Weber (After We Collided, How to Get Away with Murder) and Bialik’s Call Me Kat co-star Julian Gant round out the cast. Yale Productions’ Jordan Beckerman and Jordan Yale Levine produced with Anne Clements, Michael Day, Mark Maxey and the late Ash Christian, with Quiver Distribution Co-Presidents Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman exec producing. BondIt Media Capital served as the film’s financier, with Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor exec producing for the company.

“We are thrilled to be able to share Mayim’s feature film debut with audiences,” said Meyerowitz and Sackman in a joint statement. “With a stellar cast in an intelligent and funny film, this relatable family story and Mayim’s touching script will surely hit home with viewers across many generations.”

“As a first-time director, it is nothing short of a dream to write for and direct a cast this accomplished, passionate, and intellectually committed to this film,” added Bialik. “As They Made Us is about a family’s tumultuous and hilarious journey from chaos to serenity. Making one’s first film is also that journey.”

Quiver Distribution is a film production, acquisition and distribution company founded by Meyerowitz and Sackman that recently acquired Kew Media Distribution’s library of 700 titles. It produced and this year will release Walter Hill’s Western Dead for a Dollar with Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, and Rachel Brosnahan, and Neil LaBute’s Out of the Blue, with Diane Kruger, Ray Nicholson, Hank Azaria and Chase Sui Wonders.

Past releases include the disaster thriller 13 Minutes with Amy Smart, Thora Birch, and Paz Vega; The Survivalist starring John Malkovich and Jonathan Rhys Meyers; Crisis starring Gary Oldman and Evangeline Lily; the iTunes and Amazon bestseller Paradise City starring Andy Biersack, Bella Thorne and Cameron Boyce; Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut Falling, in which he starred alongside Lance Henriksen and Laura Linney; Chick Fight, starring Malin Akerman, Alec Baldwin and Bella Thorne; I Am Woman, starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Danielle McDonald and Evan Peters; Becky, starring Kevin James and Lulu Wilson; and The Lost Husband starring Josh Duhamel and Leslie Bibb.

Lawrence Greenberg negotiated the As They Made Us deal on behalf of Quiver, with Film Mode Entertainment’s Clay Epstein on behalf of the filmmakers.

“Shiva Baby” has been nominated in the categories Breakthrough Director (Emma Seligman) and Breakthrough Performer (Rachel Sennott) at the Gotham awards, commonly referred to as the first prominent awards ceremony kicking off the award season! Big congratulations to Dianna’s director and co-star. If we’re lucky, the film will continue to do well at the upcoming awards season, and Dianna will attend lots of events to support the film and crew.

The 31st annual Gotham Awards ceremony will take place on November 29 at Cipriani Wall Street. If Dianna attends to support Rachel and Emma, we will of course provide full coverage!

“The Green Knight,” “The Lost Daughter,” “Passing,” “Pig” and “Test Pattern” will compete for best feature film at the 31st annual Gotham Awards. The event is a key stop in the awards season marathon, particularly for lower-budget indie fare that is looking to elbow into the Oscars race.

At the Gothams, “Passing,” a black-and-white drama that examines racism and colorist, and “The Lost Daughter,” a searing look at motherhood, led the pack with five nominations apiece. Close behind was “CODA,” a tender look at a teenager who is the only hearing member of a deaf family, which earned three nominations including breakthrough performer for its star, Emilia Jones. “Red Rocket,” the story of a washed-up porn star who returns to his hometown, also nabbed three nominations. (Read full list of nominees)

Finally some proper news, Dianna fans!! “The Laureate” will be closing the Mallorca Film Festival, which is being held in Spain between October 27th and November 2nd. We will of course provide full coverage from the festival, so stay tuned for some big updates next month!

After a pandemic induced 2020 hybrid edition, the 10th edition of the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival will take place as a wholly in-person event.

The festival will open with Benito Zambrano’s Mallorca-set literary adaptation “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” (Spain). Zambrano will be present with principal cast. It will close with the world premiere of William Nunez’s 1920s-set “The Laureate” (U.K.), based on the acclaimed war poet Robert Graves’ unconventional home life. Nunez and his principal cast, Tom Hughes, Dianna Agron and Laura Haddock, as well as the Graves family, will be in attendance. Both films are part of the international features competition.

In addition, the festival has a documentary features international competition and a documentary features Made in Balearics competition as well as a robust shorts program.

In all, the 139 films at the festival include 27 world premieres, 31 Spanish premieres and 12 European premieres from 32 countries.

“Our line-up this year invites us to have tea with Robert Graves in the English countryside, eat lemon cake in the mountains of Mallorca, experience first love in Paris and come of age in China; we can witness bohemian nights in northern California, cultural clashes in Berlin and even be sent to Mars,” said festival director and curator Sandra Seeling Lipski. “I am happy to say that our international competition feature film line-up presents a majority of female-directed features – and six out of the 10 films in contention in this category are first features, too.”

“Evolution discovers new talents and connects them to industry professionals over seven days on the island of Mallorca; this specific mix creates a powerful energy to explore cultures and create new projects together,” Lipski added.

Public non-profit tourism organisation Fundacion Mallorca Turismo is the main sponsor for the 2021 edition, with Portixol Hotel and Restaurant as the official festival hotel partner.

Shiva Baby continues to amaze! If you still haven’t seen it, make sure you do – it will come to HBO Max starting July 7. Below you can read an article Vanity Fair did on the film a couple of days ago.

Vanity Fair | As cinemas struggle to get back on their feet this summer following countless pandemic-related setbacks, we’ve seen well-deserved cheers for mainstream victories at the box office such as A Quiet Place Part II. However, there’s another success story on a smaller scale about a film connecting with audiences in a profound and emotional way, not only defying Covid restrictions in theaters, but the usual difficulty any independent film has in finding a foothold.

That movie is Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, and its run at the New York University-adjacent Quad Cinemas is a good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth sensation, just like we had in the before times.

The Quad’s Diana Drumm noted that the theater has a “longstanding history of independent cinema, LGBTQ and women-helmed titles,” so she was particularly pleased audiences have been coming to see Shiva Baby “in droves.” She pointed out that since the theater’s 2017 renovation, it’s been the longest-running title since Agnès Varda’s Faces Places.

I was lucky enough to be on-hand as a moderator for a post-screening Q&A on Thursday. Yes, it’s another sign that New York is coming back to life when you can see an audience that probably needs to pee, but doesn’t want to race out because the star of the movie is right there.

Rachel Sennott plays the lead role of Danielle, a bisexual soon-to-be-college grad who bumps into her sugar daddy at a Jewish mourning ceremony that typically involves as much noshing and chatting as prayer. Sennott was on hand to celebrate as the film kicked off its 13th week at the downtown theater. (The Los Angeles-based performer is also in town for a number of standup dates that you can learn more about on her Instagram page, which you should follow anyway.) “You’re the Queen of the Quad!” an audience member cried out, which, Sennott later said, was particularly touching, as she used to come to “this cool theater” when she was a student at NYU. It was there, at the drama school, where she first met Seligman, who was in the film department. Sennott was performing in a lot of plays, she said during the Q&A, but had an awakening when she got stuck doing something where she “died in the first two minutes” and spent the rest of each night “just being dead.” She then made an effort to appear in as many student films as possible. Seligman saw her and cast her in a short film that eventually became the feature film. Sennott called it “their baby,” but quickly added, “and I’m the dad.” She joked that Seligman had to deal with all the editing and whatnot while she got to say, “great job!”

The low-budget first feature boasts a string of terrific, established actors, including Fred Melamed, Polly Draper, Dianna Agron, and Jackie Hoffman. The story takes place in just a few hours with all of Danielle’s problems compressing into one eruption of what we members of the Hebraic faith call tsuris.

That translated into days of filming where Sennott had to quickly reorient herself from typical young-person anxiety to full-blown breakdown. The actor and director had something of a private language to describe where Sennott needed to be emotionally, even if it meant she was jumping around a lot. The result, as I witnessed, definitely landed with the core demographic.

“Hi, I’m a queer, Jewish, 20-year-old and this movie is everything,” was the sentiment many young women had when coming up to Sennott after the screening. (You don’t have to be Jewish or queer or young to love this movie, but it doesn’t hurt!)

Watching the exchange between the star and fans who deeply connected with this small film was something I didn’t realize I’d missed during a pandemic year when in-person events were put on hold. Luckily for you, if you can’t make it to New York City, Shiva Baby is available on VOD and will be on HBO Max starting July 7.

Just like at the New York premiere, several “behind the scenes” photos of Dianna were taken and shared on InstaGram once she was styled and ready for the premiere by the incredible Liza Voloshin. These are simply too stunning not to post! I promise I won’t make it a habit of adding Behind the Scenes/Getting Ready photos to our photoshoots section, but when you see how stunning these are I doubt you can blame me… 😉 Also, big thanks to the incredible Mike for the photo enhancements!

‘Shiva Baby’ keeps on giving! The independent film was screened in Los Angeles on the rooftop of the JW Marriott at LA Live Thursday night (April 1st), with Dianna and her co-stars all in attendance. For the occasion, Dianna wore a gorgeous V-neck black dress by Oscar de la Renta, with off the shoulder frill sleeves and a daring thigh high split – so daring in fact that Dianna had to stand the whole evening! Even during the Q&A following the film screening, Dianna can be seen standing while everyone else has been seated. I hope she will be given a good foot massage today, as in those heels, it must have been a long night… Still, it looked like they were having a great night, and we’ve been blessed with 90 high quality photos from the premiere.

FYI: Dianna’s incredible dress is by Oscar De La Renta, and the jewellery is by Kwiat. Her styling was done by Chloe Hartstein, Sabrina Bedrani (makeup) and Bryce Scarlett (Hair). If you want to purchase a copy of Dianna’s stunning dress, it can be bought at Saks Fifth Avenue right now – however, it’ll cost you — jaw drop — £2500!