The documentary Young @ Heart won an Audience Award for international features this weekend at Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) and now it's just locked up a North American theatrical distribution deal with Fox Searchlight. The deal, which was finalized Sunday night, is estimated to be worth about $2 million. Young @ Heart is a documentary about a choral group of senior citizens who cover an eclectic mix of popular songs. (Apparently their repertoire includes The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated.") Although the choral group is located in Massachusetts, the film is actually a British production, directed by Stephen Walker. As Monika Bartyzel noted last month, Working Title Films has already picked up the rights to remake the movie as a feature film. Perhaps if they age Bill Nighy a bit ...

Fox Searchlight reported that Young @ Heart is the distribution company's first documentary in more than ten years -- my guess is that the previous doc was Al Pacino's Looking for Richard from 1996. However, even though the indie-film arm of Fox isn't accustomed to handling documentaries, it seems capable of bringing box-office success to the film. As Anne Thompson noted on her Variety blog, Fox Searchlight has been doing quite well lately -- Waitress (which you should all go see if you haven't) has earned $16 million thus far in release, for example. The studio is also behind the upcoming Wes Anderson release, The Darjeeling Limited. And then there's that Little Miss Sunshine movie they released last year, which I believe is considered a hit. Young @ Heart is tentatively scheduled for a Spring 2008 release.

Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) announced its jury prizes, the Target Filmmaker Awards, on Thursday night. These awards don't merely bring the filmmakers good publicity and critical acclaim -- each winning filmmaker receives a $50,000 cash prize. The Best Narrative Feature winner was August Evening, a Spanish-language drama about an undocumented older worker's relationship with his widowed daughter-in-law. The film is writer-director Chris Eska's feature debut. Texans might be interested to know that August Evening received Texas Film Production Fund grants in 2005 and 2006 (as did last year's winner, Gretchen ... LA must like those Austin filmmakers). August Evening landed a distribution deal this week with Maya Entertainment.

Billy the Kid (pictured at right) took home the Best Documentary Feature prize. The film, which follows a teenage boy in Maine, also won the documentary jury prize at SXSW this year. Monika Bartyzel caught a screening at Hot Docs and said, "Watching this documentary is an exercise in restraint -- the restraint not to write down everything that Billy says." The film is directed by first-timer Jennifer Venditti, and has stirred up some controversy lately for potentially exploiting its subject. LAFF has not yet announced its audience awards but will wait until Sunday, the festival's closing night.

It's been a busy week for distributors buying the rights to independent films. One reason is Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF), which is taking place right now, but films from other fests this year are also landing theatrical release. I'm especially pleased about the first film on this list since it's one I've seen and enjoyed.

• Hannah Takes the Stairs, which premiered at SXSW earlier this year, has been picked up by IFC First Take for theatrical release. Hannah is Chicago filmmaker Joe Swanberg's third feature. The film has a large ensemble cast including Greta Gerwig, Kent Osbourne, Mark Duplass and Andrew Bujalski. The SXSW premiere triggered discussions about a potential new filmmaking movement called Mumblecore. The film will be released in theaters starting on August 22. First Take is IFC's day-and-date distribution program, so expect to see the film on cable soon too.
• The Cinema Guild obtained U.S. distribution rights to the German film Yella, which premiered at Berlinale earlier this year. Nina Hoss won a Silver Bear for Best Actress in this thriller. Erik Davis's review has convinced me to see this film when it opens here: "Like a drug, Yella slowly creeps on you long after the end credits roll, takes hold of your body and doesn't let go until you're convinced it was one of the best films this year's Berlinale had to offer." Look for Yella to open in theaters later this year.

Me and You and Everyone We Know had it's LA premiere ath the Los Angeles Film Festival last night, and as you can see by this photo (by Brian Brooks of indieWIRE), much of the cast, including its many child actors, joined directress Miranda July on-stage for the Q & A. Brooks also notes that a band of LAFF attendees took it opon themselves to reenact a certain scene from the film. Without giving too much of the film away, here's a hint as to which scene: the reenactment involved an ad, placed on Craig's List, titled, "2 C*cksuckers Looking For an Authority" ... although the reenactment seems to have swapped out two men of about 32 for the adolescent girls who conduct the experiment in the film.