Fox Searchlight Pictures Chief Operating Officer Nancy Utley
announced Tuesday that the company acquired the Northern American rights to the
inspiring nonfiction movie Young @ Heart,
which picked up the Audience Award for the Best International Feature at the
recently concluded 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival.

“Young @ Heart is
everything one could want in a movie-going experience: surprising, moving,
enlightening and entertaining,” said Utley. “The audience becomes a community
as they laugh, applaud, and shed some tears. We couldn’t be more honored to
have this film as Searchlight’s first documentary in over a decade.”

Directed by Stephen Walker, the movie stars a New
England senior citizens chorus that has delighted audiences
worldwide with their covers of songs by everyone from The Clash to Coldplay. Produced
by Sally George and funded by Channel 4 in the UK,
the film is scheduled to be released in the spring of 2008. “I am absolutely
thrilled,” said Walker. “This is
the first film for our new company, Walker George Films, and my producer and I
are incredibly excited to be working with the wonderfully talented and
enthusiastic team at Fox Searchlight.”

Walker should be stoked — this is exactly the sort of small picture that Fox Searchlight excels in marketing, and squeezing its full potential from.