UTA has signed “Union County” director Adam Meeks for representation.
Union County, starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January to rave reviews and a long standing ovation. In the film, Poulter and Centineo play brothers battling opioid addiction. Meeks seamlessly blends their performances with the real-life participants of a court-sponsored drug rehabilitation program in rural Ohio.
Earlier this month, Variety exclusively revealed that Oscilloscope Laboratories had acquired the recovery-focused drama for distribution, with a theatrical release scheduled for August 14th.
Union County is the writer-director’s debut feature, expanding on his 2020 short film of the same name. The short had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival and went on to screen at international film festivals, including the Champs-Elysées Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Shortfest.
During an extended Q&A at Sundance, Poulter, who also produced the film, explained what sets Meeks’ script apart from other works on the opioid crisis. “It wasn’t really starting with a story and then finding a location,” he explained. “But the stories being told were more a reflection of the work that was actually being done.”
Mr. Meeks was inspired to create “Union County” after spending time with extended family living in that part of the state. His uncle introduced him to a drug court judge, who invited him to sit in on a meeting. Director Meeks explained how he developed the hybrid story: “It was also important to fictionalize the central story, not only as a way to express a certain intimacy of storytelling and characterisation, but also so that we, as filmmakers, could look at difficult moments and certain dangerous qualities and do it without imposing it on someone who is in recovery. This is a very difficult and long process, and we don’t have to have a camera crew with us.”
Meeks is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He is also a Fellow of the Film Independent Screenwriting Institute. In addition to UTA, Meeks is repped by Untitled Entertainment and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
