Current Issue #488

Girl Asleep Awakens Global Audiences

Girl Asleep Awakens Global Audiences

Acclaimed SA film Girl Asleep is voraciously attracting prestigious honours and audiences all over the world.

Since its premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2015, the film has screened at no less than eight international film festivals, including the much loved Berlin Film Festival. Having won the Most Popular Feature at the Adelaide Film Festival, Girl Asleep has also been nominated for Best Feature at the Berlin Film Festival in the Generation category, and Best Feature at the upcoming SA Screen Awards. And in perhaps the most lucrative of all these honours, the distribution rights for Girl Asleep have so far been sold to 10 film distributors world-wide, guaranteeing the film broader audiences in at least 20 different nations, from the US to Latvia to Taiwan. Director Rosemary Myers said it has been a “great thrill to share the film with an international audience and to see them embrace the humour and heart of the work with the same enthusiasm as our local audiences” Based on Windmill Theatre’s critically lauded play of the same name, Girl Asleep is the first foray into cinema for the local company. Set in Australia’s suburban 1970s Girl Asleep follows a coming-of-age story mould, as Greta Driscoll, 14, approaches the daunting social minefield of high school. The film soon spirals out of conventionality as Greta is thrust into a surreal parallel world, filled with odd eroticism and danger where she can find her true self. Written and performed from a wealth of local talent including writer Matthew Whittet, Eamon Farren, Amber McMahon, Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Danielle Catanzariti, Girl Asleep is a uniquely Australian production, and an impressively mature piece of work dealing with themes that resonate for global audiences.

Read The Adelaide Review’s review of Girl Asleep Now

Amid this swag of honours and earning praise from global media, including the US cinema masthead Variety, who called the film “An exuberant example of imaginative film making that takes its cues from imagination and talent,” Girl Asleep is set for a strong showing in 2016. The film will be exposed to a wider Australian audience than just the Adelaide Film Festival when it is released this year in September. Fergus Grady, Head of Theatrical and Acquisitions at Umbrella (one of Girl Asleep’s local distributors) said he is “excited to work with the team behind Girl Asleep to share the film with a wider Australian audience who we are confident will fall in love with the film as much as Adelaide audiences did last year.” Girl Asleep is set for a wide Australian release this September. girlasleepfilm.com

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