Press release from Grey Management Group
Kojo Pictures and Jump Street Films today announced that Dean O’Flaherty’s debut feature Beautiful has been invited to screen at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival, to run June 13-21.
This comes off the back of a successful international premiere last month at the Newport Beach International Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Sales agent Maximum Films has just sold the film to France and all French-speaking European territories, to add to further recent sales to Japan (where it is scheduled for release in August), Poland, Middle East, Russia, Mexico and HBO Eastern Europe.
Searing and luscious, Beautiful tells the story of Daniel, a shy and introverted 14 year old boy residing in Sunshine Hills, a suburb living in the grip of fear following the rumoured abductions of three teenage girls. Daniel’s two main obsessions are photography and Suzy, a 17 year old Lolita, a dangerous combination of youth and sexuality. Using his crush to her advantage, Suzy asks Daniel that in exchange for her friendship he must bring her secrets and photographs of the neighbours and houses that surround them. Thus begins a journey into the underbelly of suburbia, taking them on the trail of a could be killer – and what starts out as an innocent summer holiday becomes anything but, leading them from childhood fantasy and into the harsh reality of the real world… one of savagery and murder.
Upon its Australian release earlier this year, many reviewers compared O’Flaherty’s filmmaking style to that of independent American master David Lynch. A visually stunning hybrid of genres that controversially goes behind closed doors to show what really may be going on in our neighbours’ homes, it’s a bold debut for the Melbourne-based writer/director who previously distributed and sold films as diverse as “Irreversible”, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”, “2:37”, “Noise” and “Bobby”.
Featuring an original score by Paul Mac, Beautiful stars Peta Wilson, Deborra-lee Furness, Tahyna Tozzi, Asher Keddie and Sebastian Gregory.