Sophie Hyde’s gender-bending drama 52 Tuesdays has been selected for the Sundance Film Festival’s world cinema dramatic competition in January.
The Adelaide-shot film will compete with 11 other titles including Blind (Norway, Netherlands), the UK’s God Help the Girl and Lilting, The Disobedient (Serbia), Liar's Dice (India), To Kill a Man (Chile) and Wetlands (Germany).
In 52 Tuesdays, Tilda Cobham-Hervey plays 16-year-old Billie, who struggles with the revelation that her mother (Del Herbert-Jane) plans to change gender. Billie goes to live with her dad for a year while mother and daughter vow to meet every Tuesday during that year. Matthew Cormack wrote the screenplay from a story he devised with Hyde.
The film was shot on consecutive Tuesdays for 52 weeks. The producers are Rebecca Summerton’s Closer Productions, Cormack, Hyde and Bryan Mason.
It had its world premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival in October, funded by the SAFC's FilmLab and the AFF Investment Fund. New York-based Visit Films is handling international sales.
"Sophie and I were in Melbourne the week before last meeting with distributors and exhibitors," Summerton tells IF. "We're currently weighing up our options as to whether to partner with someone or release ourselves. Either way we intend to be heavily involved with the release; we feel a film like 52 Tuesdays needs the attention and passion of its makers to give it a chance in cinemas."
Also screening in the world cinema dramatic competition are Difret (Ethiopia,) Lock Charmer (Argentina), Viktoria (Bulgaria, Romania) and White Shadow (Italy, Germany).