Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning has a North American home: Kino Lorber will release the film theatrically in 2027 and follow with digital, educational and home-video windows, Variety reported exclusively on 5 November 2026. Karoliina Dwyer, Kino Lorber’s vice-president of acquisitions, closed the deal with Charades and Gersh. The price was not disclosed.
Key facts
- Buyer: Kino Lorber for North America (theatrical 2027, then digital, educational and home video)
- Negotiators: Karoliina Dwyer (Kino Lorber) with Charades and Gersh
- Festival runway: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight people’s choice audience award; Rome Film Festival progressive cinema top prize; Anthony Boyle shared Rome’s best actor prize
- Awards path: eight BIFA nominations, including best British independent film, best director, best screenplay and best ensemble (announced 3 November)
- Production: Moonspun Films (Tracy O’Riordan); developed with BBC Film; co-financed with BFI National Lottery funding, in association with TPC, Charades and Curzon Film
Festival path into a US theatrical plan
Barnard’s fifth feature adapts Keiran Goddard’s novel. Irish playwright Enda Walsh (Die My Love, Small Things Like These) wrote the screenplay. Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew play friends from a Birmingham estate whose thirties look nothing like the futures they sketched as teenagers. Charades’ sales page lists Curzon as the UK theatrical distributor and dates the UK open to 4 December 2026, two days before BIFA’s main ceremony at the Roundhouse on 6 December.
Variety quotes Barnard on wanting cinema audiences to sit with the friendship group after she read Goddard’s book, and Dwyer on a generation living with unrealised plans. Barnard’s previous feature Ali & Ava also premiered in Directors’ Fortnight; Variety notes it later took two BIFAs and two BAFTA nominations, which is the track record buyers weigh when they price a fifth feature.
Comparables and gaps
Kino Lorber’s specialty slate is built for festival titles that need a careful US theatrical and educational window rather than a wide multiplex open. That fits a Directors’ Fortnight audience winner with a dense UK awards slate better than a studio specialty arm chasing volume. What Variety does not report, and Charades does not publish on the film page, is the MG, the number of screens planned for the 2027 US open, or which prior Charades titles Kino Lorber has already handled. Those blanks matter for producers modelling cash versus services on the next Barnard-scale UK drama.
Why it matters
For UK specialty titles, a named North American theatrical plan after a Fortnight audience prize and a leading BIFA slate is the bridge from festival heat into the winter awards calendar. Related FilmBunch coverage includes Elsinore’s lead of the BIFA nominations, Marvelous and Kapa’s France–Greece pact on Nana and Tristes Tropiques’ AFM-week territory sales. More under Deals.
Our reading
Kino Lorber is buying festival proof and a clear UK awards path, not a wide-release scale play. The next evidence is the firm 2027 theatrical date and whether Curzon’s December UK open feeds North American reviews before BIFA winners are named on 6 December.