WORLD PREMIERES FOR THREE NEW ZEALAND FILMS AT SUNDANCE 2015
New Zealand co-production feature films, Turbo Kid and Slow West and short film A.D. 1363, The End of Chivalry will all have their world premiere at next year’s Sundance Film Festival, held in and around Park City, Utah from 22 January through to 1 Febuary 2015. Widely regarded as the premiere US showcase for American and international independent film, this year 185 films were selected from 11,166 worldwide submissions for consideration.
Written and directed by Canada’s Anouk Whissell, Francois Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissell, and produced by Ant Timpson and Tim Riley for New Zealand and Benoit Beaulieu and Anne-Marie Gélinas for Canada, Turbo Kid is an official Canada/New Zealand co-production. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the film is a BMX-powered, blood-splattered love story that follows the epic journey of an orphaned outcast reluctant to be a hero in the wasteland of an alternate future. Turbo Kid will have its World Premiere in the Park City at Midnight section of the Festival.
Turbo Kid is financed by Telefilm Canada, the New Zealand Film Commission, the Quebec Provincial Tax Credit Program, the Canadian Tax Credit Program and Alchemy 24, and collaborators Cinepool, Departement Camera and Curious Films. The film will be distributed in Canada by Raven Banner and in Quebec by Filmoption International. Epic Picture Group is representing world sales outside of Australia, New Zealand and Canada at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
UK/New Zealand co-production Slow West, was written and directed by John Maclean and produced for New Zealand by Rachel Gardner for See-Saw Films and for the UK by DMC Film. Set at the end of the nineteenth century, the film follows the journey across the American frontier of young Jay Cavendish who is searching for the woman he loves. Along the way, he is joined by Silas, a mysterious traveller, and hotly pursued by an outlaw. Filmed mainly on location in the MacKenzie country of the South Island of New Zealand, the film stars Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Slow West will have its World Premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section of the Festival.
Slow West was made with funding from the New Zealand Film Commission and Film 4. World sales for the film are being handled by Hanway Films.
Short film A.D. 1363, The End of Chivalry is written and directed by New Zealand-based American Jake Mahaffy. The film recounts a little-known historical catastrophe, which leads to the definitive end of the era of chivalry and questing. It will have its World Premiere in the US Narrative Short Films section of the Festival.
A fourth feature film selected for a World Premiere at Sundance has strong New Zealand connections. US film Z for Zachariah directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nissar Modi, was shot at the Banks Peninsula, in the South Island of New Zealand last year. Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie and Chris Pine, the film will have its World Premiere in the US Dramatic Competition section of the festival.