Indie distributor 1-2 Special has acquired North American rights to Sandra Wollner’s latest feature, a Cannes Un Certain Regard winner titled Everytime, for its domestic theatrical slate. The deal marks another major acquisition for the New York-based label as it continues building a growing catalogue of festival-backed independent films. Founded in early 2025, 1-2 Special has steadily expanded its footprint in the arthouse distribution space through carefully selected acquisitions in such a short period of time.

Cannes, in particular, has long served as a launchpad for distributors hoping to secure some of the year’s most acclaimed independent films before wider audiences discover them.

And with one of this year’s top Cannes winners now joining its lineup, the company appears to be making one of its biggest theatrical plays yet.

The acquisition gives 1-2 Special all North American rights to Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner’s Everytime, which recently won the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. For a distributor founded just last year, the pickup further strengthens its ambitions in prestige and arthouse cinema while adding another critically discussed title to its expanding slate.

The deal was negotiated by Charades on behalf of the filmmakers, continuing a busy Cannes period for 1-2 Special after the distributor also acquired Critics’ Week winner La Gradiva. The company’s latest move signals a growing willingness to compete for buzzy festival titles as it continues shaping its theatrical identity.

At the center of Everytime is a mother, her young daughter, and a teenage boy brought together by grief following a tragedy. The three travel to the Canary Islands for a family holiday that never happened, only for the boundaries between memory and reality, past and present, to slowly begin overlapping. Adding to the roster of Aftersun's director of photography, Gregory Oke, the film has already drawn attention following its Cannes debut.

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But beyond its festival success, Everytime is also shining a brighter spotlight on a filmmaker whose quietly unconventional storytelling has steadily earned recognition on the festival circuit.

Sandra Wollner arrives at Everytime after steadily building one of the more distinctive voices in contemporary European cinema. Her debut feature, The Impossible Picture, earned Best Film honors from the German Film Critics Association while also winning the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award at the Göteborg Film Festival. Her follow-up feature, The Trouble With Being Born, later premiered at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section.

“Why does the sun go on shining? One would think that after a tragedy like the one that happens in the film, the world ought to have the decency to stop...The indifference of the universe, which doesn’t care about our pain — that’s what interested me,” Wollner told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the film’s Cannes premiere.

The film has already generated strong critical reactions following its Cannes debut, arriving in a year when films like this year’s Palme d’Or winner also helped spotlight the festival’s increasingly diverse slate of breakout titles. The Hollywood Reporter described Everytime as an “intriguingly understated grief drama,” particularly praising the emotional weight of its ending. Meanwhile, Variety called it “the most refined and inventive formal statement” in this year’s Un Certain Regard lineup, suggesting the film confirms Wollner "as a major in the making.”

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Are you interested in seeing Everytime when it arrives in North American theaters? Let us know in the comments.