Continuance Pictures’ indie horror Subject will be one of seven features to be shown as part of the Frontières Buyers Showcase at Cannes’ Marché du Film in July.
Organised in conjunction with Fantasia, the genre-focused event screens works-in-progress or recently completed films seeking international distribution, festival selection, and/or sales representation. A total of 13 projects have been selected this year.
Subject stars Stephen Phillips as Willem Poirer, a drug-addicted criminal who accepts an offer to carry out his sentence by observing a mysterious creature in a secretive government facility.
When the creature starts to grow and make Willem recount his heinous acts of the past, the struggle to rehabilitate becomes a struggle for survival.
The film was written by the LA-based Vincent Befi, who submitted it to Continuance Pictures inaugural Continue Short Film initiative in 2019.
Not only was the script named as a finalist, but it piqued the interest of Continuance founders David Gim and Tristan Barr, who would go on to produce the feature version in Australia, with Barr also directing.
The production took place across three weeks in the inner Melbourne suburb of Northcote at the end of 2019, housed almost entirely in a purpose-built set consisting of three separated rooms within an empty warehouse.
Gim told IF he was looking forward to connecting with potential buyers for the film, which is currently in post-production.
“(The organisers) were obviously really happy with the teaser and rough cut we sent,” he said.
“If it goes really well, then we have a higher chance of getting the film shown at a midnight session at Cannes and then push it into Midnight Madness at TIFF and those sort of festivals.”
He added the selection “meant a lot” given the role of the Continue Short Film initiative in the project.
“We really were involved from the get go in terms of the development stage,” he said.
“We’re enormously proud and the cast and crew are all really excited.”
Cannes Frontières will be held across July 10-11.