The long wait is over.

        The Dream Catcher, the prize-winning film-festival hit made by Ohio native Edward Radtke, has a commercial distributor.

Director Edward Radkte on the set of The Dream Catcher (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        SearchParty Films, a new theatrical distribution firm created “for the really, truly independent filmmaker” announced Tuesday that The Dream Catcher will be among its first releases.

        Shot in 1997 in Ohio, Nevada, Utah and points in between, the road movie about a pair of troubled teen-agers searching for family connections has won numerous honors from film festivals around the globe, including a “best director” honor for Mr. Radtke from the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1999.

        It has been picked up for commercial release in French art houses, and played brief engagements at the Esquire in Cincinnati, the New Neon Movies in Dayton, and the Little Theatre in Yellow Springs, where Mr. Radtke and the film's producers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar live.

        SearchParty will release the movie in five large cities, beginning with New York and Los Angeles, Mr. Radtke said, perhaps as soon as May.

        The director praised SearchParty co-founders Larry Estes and Scott M. Rosenfelt, for their honesty. The two are veterans of the independent-film world, best known as producers of the American Indian hit Smoke Signals, based on the work of author Sherman Alexie.

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