Set for a North American premiere in the Spotlight section of the forthcoming Sundance Film Festival, The Babadook director Jennifer Kent's second feature The Nightingale has been acquired for U.S. distribution by IFC Films, Variety reports.
This news comes after The Nightingale won the Special Jury Prize at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival.
"One night in 1820s Tasmania, Clare, a young Irish convict, loses everything she holds dear after her family is horrifically attacked. She’s immediately driven to track down and seek revenge against the British officer who oversaw the horror, so she enlists the service of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy. Marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past, Billy reluctantly agrees to take her through the interior of Tasmania. On this brutal quest for blood, Clare gets much more than she bargained for."
“The film is a study on violence and what a violent mind and therefore a violent society can do to damage the human spirit," Kent told Variety. "It’s about how we can evolve through and beyond that violence. For me ‘The Nightingale’ is about love—not in a schmaltzy way—but its power to allow us to evolve as human beings.”
Written and directed by Kent, the film stars Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman, Ewen Leslie, Harry Greenwood and Baykali Ganambarr.