Black Bear Signs Cannes Winner Wollner & Sundance's Ahn
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- Black Bear's management division signed Sandra Wollner and Stephanie Ahn, with both filmmakers represented by agent Joanne Roberts Wiles, whose client roster already includes Gregg Araki, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Cooper Raiff, and Karyn Kusama.
- Sandra Wollner's feature "Everytime" won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and was acquired by 1-2 Special for U.S. distribution ahead of its September 25, 2026 release.
- Wollner, who studied documentary film directing at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and lives in Berlin, previously collected 20-plus international awards for "The Trouble With Being Born," which world-premiered at the 2020 Berlinale and won the Austrian Film Awards for Best Feature and Best Director.
- Stephanie Ahn's directorial debut "Bedford Park" earned the Special Jury Prize for Debut Feature at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for worldwide distribution.
- "Bedford Park" will screen at Toronto, Busan, Stockholm, and Taipei after Sundance, with a U.S. release set for September 22, 2026 — three days ahead of "Everytime."
- Ahn, a NYU Tisch graduate based in Brooklyn, previously worked as an editor on films including "The Girls" and "My Old Lady," with screenplays recognized as finalists by Cinequest, Austin Film Festival, and Final Draft.
Why it matters: Black Bear is locking in representation for two directors whose 2026 festival runs — a Cannes Un Certain Regard top prize for Wollner and a Sundance Special Jury Prize for Ahn — make them unusually hot signings before their films reach U.S. theaters three days apart. Adding them to a roster that already includes Cooper Raiff, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Gregg Araki signals the management arm is positioning for auteur-driven commercial crossovers rather than purely festival-circuit talent.
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