Deadline is reporting that Gravitas Ventures has taken U.S. rights to 2019 Toronto premiere Sweetness In The Belly, which stars Dakota Fanning in the story of an English child abandoned in Africa.
The distributor will release the film digitally May 8, with theaters set to be closed beyond that date due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari and based on the bestselling novel by Camilla Gibb, the film co-stars Aquaman co-star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Wunmi Mosaku, best-known for British crime series “Luther,” and a BAFTA winner for “Damilola, Our Loved Boy,” and “The Big Bang Theory” star Kunal Nayyar.
The immigrant romance drama sees Lilly Abdal (Fanning), “a woman caught between two places: one of her birth parents and the other, where she was adopted, raised and fell in love. Orphaned in Africa as a child, Lilly’s first experience of her parents’ homeland of England is as a refugee, escaping civil war.
As lost in this cold new world as her fellow immigrants, Lilly becomes the heart of this disenfranchised community in London, attempting to reunite people with their scattered families. But as her friend Amina discovers, Lilly’s mission isn’t purely altruistic and a passionate lost love affair is revealed between Lilly and Aziz (Abdul-Mateen II), an idealistic doctor.”
Sweetness In The Belly was developed by Sienna Films and is produced by Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny (How She Move, Touch of Pink, New Waterford Girl) of Sienna Films together with Alan Moloney (Mary Shelley, Brooklyn, Breakfast on Pluto, Intermission) and Susan Mullen (Brooklyn, Maudie) of Parallel Films. Mehret Mandefro (Little White Lie, Difret) and Adrian Sturges (The Enfield Haunting, The Disappearance of Alice Creed) are executive producers along with Laura Bickford (Che, Traffic) and Fiona Druckenmiller (Beasts of No Nation).
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