Drafthouse Films and Cinedigm Unleash 'The Dog'

A man walks into a bank…

(Stop me if you've heard this one.)

A man walks into a bank with the intention of robbing it to pay for his partner's sex change. Things go … awry.

Of course you've heard it before: This is the plot of 1975's Academy Award-nominated Dog Day Afternoon, starring none other than Al Pacino. But it's also the real-life story of John Wojtowicz, who's now getting to tell his own version of the story in The Dog, which was just acquired for distribution by Drafthouse Films and Cinedigm.

As that story goes, directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren tracked down Wojtowicz after a 2001 Dog Day Afternoon screening, only to spend the next decade collecting interview footage and more. "The result," explains a press release from Drafthouse Films, "is an immersive portrait of an eccentric nonconformist and his truth-is-stranger-than-fiction journey."

Turns out you really can't make this stuff up.

This isn't the first time Cinedigm and Drafthouse have partnered up: Last summer, the local cinema chain screened a slate of seven documentaries carefully curated by the folks at Cinedigm in a series dubbed Cinedigm Docurama.

The film is currently slated for a theatrical and VOD release sometime next summer. Drafthouse Films' latest release, The Visitor, opens tonight.