A still from Megan Riakos' directorial debut Crushed.
Megan Riakos' directorial debut Crushed is set for a March 15 theatrical release followed by screenings nationally via cinema-on-demand service Fan-Force.
The new Australian thriller is direct from a successful international film festival run including Montreal World Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival and Napa Valley Film Festival.
The film, written and directed by Riakos (50-50, The Shed), is the story of a young woman (played by Sarah Bishop, doing double-duty as a producer alongside Full Clips's Robbie Miles) who returns home to the family vineyard after her father dies in an accident.
Riakos, an AFTRS graduate, recently completed the Professional Screenwriting program at UCLA, where she wrote two feature scripts over the course of a year, one of which was Crushed.
After returning home the director enlisted Bishop, with whom she'd made the short film Blue Bird in 2013, in addition to a group of old AFTRS pals, many of whom served as her HODs.
Crushed was filmed on location in the Mudgee wine region in NSW.
Its cast includes Sarah Bishop (Skit Box, Deadbeat Dads) as Ellia, Les Hill (Underbelly, House Husbands), Roxane Wilson (Holding the Man, Water Rats, Stingers), Millie Spencer-Brown (The Black Balloon) and Remy Brand (Sam Fox Extreme Adventures, Crossed Wires).
The vineyard showcased in the film is owned by an old high school friend's father, who happily agreed to let Riakos shoot on his Mudgee property.
The 19-day shoot was financed by a combination of the director's own savings, private investment, and creative fundraising, like packaging up the vineyard's product with Crushed labels.
Crushed will have its Sydney premiere at Randwick’s The Ritz Cinema on March 15, before it screens nationally on demand via FanForce.com.