Sundance Prize Winner ‘Radical’ Starring Eugenio Derbez Secures Interim Agreement For Publicity Ahead Of October Release

EXCLUSIVE: Radical, the Mexican true-life drama starring CODA‘s Eugenio Derbez that broke out of Sundance as the 2023 Festival Favorite, has secured a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement that will permit publicity efforts ahead of its October 20 nationwide release, Deadline has learned.

Agreements of the sort do not guarantee actor participation in PR campaigns, only opening up the possibility for it amidst the SAG-AFTRA strike. But Radical is precisely the kind of film that would most benefit from it, as a small, star-driven awards prospect looking to perform at the box office. And it is expected that Derbez now will be out promoting the movie, according to sources familiar with the matter.

RELATED: SAG-AFTRA Tells Members It’s OK To Promote Their Movies With Interim Agreements At Film Festivals

Among other major titles to have secured publicity-focused agreements from the actors guild recently are Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and Michael Mann’s Ferrari, which are bound for Venice, and Christy Hall’s drama Daddio, starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn, which will make its way to Toronto.

An inspirational title from writer-director Christopher Zalla, Radical is due to hit theaters in the U.S. and Mexico via Participant and TelevisaUnivision’s Pantelion Films. The film is based on a 2013 article written for Wired magazine by Josh Davis, which told the true story of Sergio Juarez Correa (Derbez), a teacher in the neglected town of Matamoros, Mexico, who suffered a mental breakdown after increasingly coming to feel that he’s failing to reach his students. When Correa stumbled upon a new form of learning via a TED Talk that might be more successful in doing so, he decided to try to implement it in order to turn his classroom situation around, to profound results.

Also starring Daniel Haddad, Gilberto Barraza, Jennifer Trejo, Mia Fernanda Solis and Danilo Guardiola, the project hails from Derbez’s production company 3PAS Studios. Derbez produced alongside partner Ben Odell and Davis, with Javier Williams, Josh Bearman, Avelino Rodriguez and Patricia Sanchez serving as EPs.