Asian-American Family Drama ‘The Harvest' Acquired by Freestyle Digital Media, Trailer Unveiled (EXCLUSIVE)
Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen's Allen Media Group, has acquired domestic rights to the critically acclaimed Asian-American family drama 'The Harvest.'
'The Harvest,' a semi-finalist in both the CAPE x Black List and Academy Nicholl Fellowship competitions, tells the story of Thai, who returns to Southern California after years in San Francisco only to face his estranged family, including a father battling kidney failure. The narrative explores the complexities of generational trauma, identity, and familial bonds within a traditional, male-centered household.
More from Variety
Freestyle Digital Media Acquires Comedy 'Clone Cops' for January Release (EXCLUSIVE)
'Lady Like' Acquired by Freestyle Digital Media: Doc About 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Breakout Lady Camden Sets January 2025 Release (EXCLUSIVE)
Freestyle Digital Media Acquires North American Rights to Midwest Dramedy 'All Happy Families' - Film News in Brief
Helmed by director Caylee So, whose previous work 'In the Life of Music' served as Cambodia's official Oscar submission, the film stars writer Doua Moua ('Gran Torino,' 'Mulan'), alongside Perry Yung ('Warrior,' 'The Knick'), Dawn Ying Yuen ('Forge'), Chrisna Chhor, and Lucas Velazquez ('100 Dias Para Enamorarnos').
The festival darling, which world premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, has built momentum through screenings at Outfest Fusion, CAAMFest, and the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. Its growing trophy shelf includes the Audience Award at the Seattle Asian-American Film Festival and a Special Jury Award at the Cambodian International Film Festival, alongside a nomination for the Anti Defamation League Stand Up Award.
''The Harvest' stands as a heartfelt tribute to resilience and the delicate threads of family and identity,' said So. 'My hope is that audiences will see their own stories reflected in ours and feel uplifted by the strength and beauty of our shared humanity.'
Moua, pulling double duty as both writer and star, added: 'It's about what we inherit, the love and the wounds, and how we make peace with both. There's a quiet stillness to the pain we carry in families, and my hope is that 'The Harvest' resonates with anyone who has ever questioned their place in a family or longed to be seen.'
The film was produced by John Houselog and Moua, with executive producers including Yoson An ('Mulan,' 'Shadow Force'), Money Vang, Jaeson Ma, Eric Tu, and Tenten Wei from EST Studios. Freestyle Digital Media negotiated the acquisition with Wei and Sophie Shi of EST Studios.
EST Studios, founded in 2022 by Jaeson Ma ('Stampede Ventures,' '88rising') and Eric Tu ('Vice,' 'Anonymous Content'), focuses on bringing Asian stories to international audiences. Their recent projects include the Oscar-shortlisted 'Hidden Letters' and the Toronto-selected 'K-Pops!' directed by eight-time Grammy winner Anderson.Paak. The studio is also behind 'Pabrik Gula,' Indonesia's highest-grossing film of 2025, which hits U.S. theaters on April 18.
The acquisition adds to Freestyle Digital Media's growing catalog of independent films, which includes 'Allswell in New York' starring Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas ('The Bear'), 'All Happy Families' with Josh Radnor and Rob Huebel, and 'Survive' featuring 'Game of Thrones' star Sophie Turner alongside Corey Hawkins.
'The Harvest' will be available to rent or own on all North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms, as well as on home video formats, starting June 20.
Watch the trailer here:
Best of Variety
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025
The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
3 hours ago
A debut novel explores family relationships and cultural displacement
In her debut novel, Misophonia, Dana Vowinckel explores the cultural diaspora through one teenager's summer across Berlin, Jerusalem, and Chicago. It's a coming of age story that balances the narratives of a daughter and her father as well as the fifteen-year-old protagonist's abrupt (and reluctant) reunion with her mother. The book is also a semi-autobiographical trek through parts of Vowinckel's own life. Born in Berlin into an American-Jewish-German family, the author grew up between Chicago and Berlin and her novel manages to capture the sometimes awkward, oftentimes tender, dynamics of a family pulled across continents and histories. Though it explores the travails of teenage girlhood, the book also delves into the nuances of being Jewish and German and the challenges of reconciliation when your goals and feelings collide with world events. 'Language is at the core of the book, not identity,' Vowinckel explained in a recent interview in New York. 'It would be a mistake to read it as purely an identity novel,' she says. Critics have praised the novel for its rich, contrasting ingredients and Vowinckel's ability to narrate the emotions of its teenage protagonist with warmth and clarity. The book won the Mara Cassens Prize, a German literary award given annually for the best German debut novel, and earned Vowinckel the literature prize of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy. It was also shortlisted for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize which celebrates outstanding new publications written in German. The 27-year old Vowinckel, who studied linguistics and literature in Berlin, Toulouse and Cambridge, was in New York to promote the recently published English translation of Misophonia by HarperVia. (The book was translated from its original German by Adrian Nathan West.) Vowinckel's visit included events at Germany's Consulate General of New York - which promotes cultural, intellectual, and artistic exchanges with Germany - and Deutsches Haus at New York University. Misophonia opens in Chicago, with parts set in Berlin and Israel. It follows a teenage protagonist, Margarita, as she travels to her father's birthplace in Israel with the mother who left her when she was a toddler. Margarita shares a special bond with her father, Avi - a doting Israeli who is a cantor at their local synagogue - ever since her mother, Marsha, abandoned the family. Eventually, arrangements are made - without Margarita's knowledge - for her to meet Marsha in Israel before returning to Germany. Blindsided, she wants no part of this overdue reconciliation with a mother she hardly knows. Meanwhile, in Germany, Avi tries to fill the hole left by Margarita's absence with a trip of his own, embarking on a personal journey, both hope-inducing and despairing. Writing the book through the prism of dueling narratives - switching between a teenage girl, and her father - allowed Vowinckel to engage readers in an unusual point-of-view combination, she says. Accounts of Jewish congregational life in Berlin are mixed with detailed descriptions of the awkwardness and lust that go along with living inside a female teenage body. 'Both perspectives were very interesting to me,' Vowinckel told the Chicago Review of Books in May. 'With a 15-year-old, there's early sexuality and kind of being lost in the world, contrasted with the very lonely, quiet life of Avi,' she said. Straddling the two narratives also helped balance the exploration of imperfect family relationships and larger cultural displacement, the author says. 'I think it was very helpful for me to have a protagonist with a very specific job description because that gives you rhythm to the text,' Vowinckel says. 'It made it very easy for me to start this big novel project with this very calm, laconic voice, and then mix it with Margarita.'
Hypebeast
7 hours ago
- Hypebeast
Rowing Blazers and Tracksmith Reunite for Preppy Athletic Capsule
Rowing Blazers, the Jack Carlson-founded American fashion label known for its colorful blazers and rugby shirts, has reunited with Boston running brandTracksmithfor a second capsule collection. This time around, the duo has crafted a limited-edition line of tops, bottoms, and accessories inspired by the 'rhythm of running and rowing.' Standout pieces include color-blocked rugby shirts decorated with Tracksmith's hare motif, as well as racing singlets signed with Rowing Blazers' signature house croquet stripe. Down the line, cotton crewneck sweaters boast big letters reading 'Jogger;' canvas duffel bags feature chenille embroidery with dual iconography, and Tracksmith's Eliot Runner is reimagined with Rowing Blazers' house croquet stripe and a material composition inspired by New England's 'natural surfaces.' The Rowing Blazers x Tracksmith collection is now available to shoponlineand in stores, with prices ranging from $48 USD to $228 USD. Notably, in addition to the collaboration, Tracksmith will now also carry additional Rowing Blazers products in select stores. Take a look at the capsule in the gallery above.
USA Today
11 hours ago
- USA Today
Best tennis match ever? Carlos Alcaraz's French Open win ushers in new rivalry
Best tennis match ever? Carlos Alcaraz's French Open win ushers in new rivalry Show Caption Hide Caption Jessica Pagula on accomplished Coco Gauff, Emma Navarro, Madison Keys Tennis player Jessica Pegula discusses how amazing it is to have other amazing American women in tennis dominating the sport. Sports Seriously So, tennis fans, how'd you like another decade or so of that? After Sunday's French Open men's final – a 5-hour, 29-minute epic that somehow ended with Carlos Alcaraz holding up the trophy for a second consecutive year – we can now officially close the book on the so-called Big Three era. There's a new game in town. And it's as spectacular to watch as anything tennis has ever seen. Yes, Alcaraz's improbable comeback to beat Jannik Sinner 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (10-2) is the story of the day. Not only did Alcaraz win his fifth Grand Slam title at just one month into his 22nd year of life – an absurd accomplishment on its own – but he did it by summoning a competitive aura only the all-time greats possess. He is, already, a legend. And that might have been the greatest match in the history of the sport. But the best part of Sunday's match is that it's not the end of the story. In many ways, it's just the beginning. HIGHLIGHTS: Alcaraz outlasts Sinner in epic French Open final The first Slam final between Alcaraz and Sinner not only exceeded every possible expectation, it sets an entirely new narrative for the sport. As Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal faded into retirement – most likely followed by Novak Djokovic in the next year or two – there was deep concern about what would come next after a 1½-decade battle between arguably the three best to ever hold a racket. Now we know definitively. Tennis is in the safest of hands. And barring something unforeseen, these two spectacular athletes are going to be doing battle in Grand Slam finals for many, many years to come. If you managed to watch the whole thing, or even just the last couple sets, it was easy to understand why that's such a tantalizing possibility. Let's start with the level of play. In a word, spectacular. Though Sinner and Alcaraz are each elite individually, combining to win the last six Grand Slam titles, the greatness they manage to draw out of each other is unique. Though different players stylistically and tactically, they have now twice played matches that could be considered among the best in the history of the sport in terms of ballstriking, endurance and the high standard it took to win a single point. When they played a US Open quarterfinal deep into the night in 2022, with Alcaraz emerging after 5 hours, 15 minutes, it showed the possibility of a friendly rivalry between two generational talents that had stretched back to childhood. It has widely been considered the best match of the decade, not just for the length of the match but the drama and the quality they both laid on the line. It only took three years to exceed that standard. Which leads to the second element of this ongoing story. What it took for Alcaraz to win that match – to beat Sinner on this particular day – was a sustained effort that few players in history could have managed. Maybe Djokovic. Maybe Nadal. Maybe. Because even though the all-time greats have all come back from two sets down and saved match points on the way to Grand Slam titles, few have had so little help from an opponent. Sure, there may be a shot or two that Sinner would want back after failing to convert three match points in the fourth set, then failing to serve out the tournament in the next game. But mostly, from that point until the final winner came off Alcaraz's racket, it was mostly about his greatness and his relentless shotmaking. Even in the fifth set, with Sinner clearly tiring more quickly than his opponent, he summoned enough energy to erase Alcaraz's early break of serve and send the match to a final tiebreak where – guess what – Alcaraz continued to pound clean winners off impossible angles. Sinner did not lose this match. Alcaraz just got up off the clay and stole it. We can debate where this final ranks among the 2008 Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer or the 1980 Wimbledon final between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg when you factor in all the intangibles. But if we're just talking about the quality of tennis played by two men over that length of time? It would be difficult to say there's ever been a better match. If the world was watching Sunday, it had to love what it saw. And when you realize what's ahead between them – more finals, more trophies, more history – this one felt like a moment to mark in time. One chapter of tennis closes, another begins. And it's going to be as entertaining as any we've seen.
