Dark Comedy ‘Honeyjoon’ Returning to Theaters As Launch Film for John Fithian’s New Venture

The Tribeca award-winning indie dramedy Honeyjoon by director Lilian T. Mehrel will return to theaters in early 2027 as a launch film for the Fithian Group’s theatrical marketplace platform Attend.

The announcement was made Wednesday at the American Film Market, where Mehrel took part in a panel on using technology and data, including the Attend marketplace, to transform indie film distribution. Honeyjoon, a dark comedy starring Jackpot! actor Ayden Mayeri and Amira Casar and about a Kurdish-Persian mother and her American daughter vacationing in the Azores after a major loss, had an earlier limited theatrical release by Utopia’s arthouse label Circle Collective in summer 2026.

Mehrel will now expand her theatrical rollout using the digital and marketing platform offered by The Fithian Group that matches producers and filmmakers directly with cinemas without having to partner with a traditional distributor.

Fithian Group founding partner Patrick Corcoran in a statement said “we are thrilled to collaborate with Lilian on the theatrical expansion of Honeyjoon with Attend. She is the kind of bold visionary filmmaker that we want to launch our platform. We can’t wait for more audiences to share this unforgettable theatrical experience.”

That will follow Honeyjoon winning the $1 million AT&T Untold Stories Award after premiering at Tribeca in 2025. The film went on to play around 50 festivals, including the Tribeca Lisboa Festival in Portugal a year ago, and win over 25 audience and jury awards.

Now John Fithian — who founded The Fithian Group after heading up the National Association of Theatre Owners along with two of his longtime lieutenants at NATO, Corcoran and Jackie Brenneman – has tapped Honeyjoon as a curated inaugural film to launch Attend.

The goal of Attend is to match a movie like Honeyjoon with the right makeup of cinemas based on various data. A filmmaker will upload various data into the platform, which will use AI to determine where best the movie might perform.

Mehrel said of her distribution deal with Attend in her own statement: “The audience response led the way. Every screening, audiences burst into laughter and tears and share that the film makes them feel alive… they made it clear that Honeyjoon needs to be shared in more theaters, for more people to discover and share this special experience. I’m so excited to do that with Attend.”