NYC Buyer Picks Up Dawson Rape Film

Hollywood Reporter big-timer Gregg Goldstein reported this morning on the progress of Rosario Dawson's upcoming film Descent, which was nabbed for distribution by the Manhattan-based upstarts at City Lights. Descent marks the actress's first project as a producer and evidently her last as a victim:

The Rent actress plays a college student slowly recovering from a brutal date rape. While trying to rebuild her life, she decides to take revenge on her attacker (Chad Faust) in a manner described as "equally shocking, controversial and graphic" by City Lights CEO Danny Fisher.

Fisher said he was prepared to release the film unrated or with a commercially poisonous NC-17 rating because he did not want to diminish the power of the material.

"This is not a revenge thriller, and we're not planning to market it as such," Fisher said.

No, of course not; "equally shocking, controversial and graphic" score-settling is strictly the domain of exploitation films. Keep it straight. Anyway, look for an equally subtle release campaign next spring; City Lights is meanwhile preparing its other New York picture, David Wain's star-studded Commandments comedy The Ten, for a Sundance premiere.

Posted at December 15, 2006 4:12 PM