Monument Releasing has acquired Eugene Kotlyarenko’s “The Code,” and is planning a theatrical release in the English-speaking world. The film premiered at the Fantasia Intl. Film Festival in Montreal and has gone on to have a strong festival run.
“The Code” will be opening at the Roxy Cinema in New York on April 23, and will be followed by a theatrical run at the Lumiere Cinema May 9 in Los Angeles. Key additional cities include Miami, Montreal, Toronto and San Francisco, with more to be added.
“The Code” is an absurd, high-concept comedy, following a sexless couple, paranoid about the status of their relationship, who embrace surveillance, spying and performance as a means to fall in love again.
The film stars Dasha Nekrasova (“Succession,” “The Beast”), Peter Vack (“The Sweet East,” “PVT Chat”), Ivy Wolk (“Anora”) and Vish Velandy (“Wobble Palace”).
It was produced by Spacemaker Productions and lensed by Bart Cortright.
Kotlyarenko’s debut features, “0s & 1s” and “Skydiver,” both released in 2010, were amongst the first to utilize the visual language of a computer screen to tell a cinematic story. His autofiction romantic comedies “A Wonderful Cloud,” starring Katelyn Sheil, and “Wobble Palace,” starring Dasha Nekrasova premiered at SXSW (2015 and 2018 respectively), and were favorably compared to the films of Woody Allen and Albert Brooks.
In 2020, he premiered “Spree” at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, presented as a live-stream, followed a rideshare driver looking to go viral via mass murder. Later that year, he self-released “We Are,” a surreal indictment of the tech world.
After retrospectives in New York, London, Toronto and Sydney, arthouse streamer Mubi programmed a series of Eugene’s work called “Love Me, Click Me!” in 2023.
