“The Royal Hotel” just had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival (our review coming soon), and it’s definitely one to watch for several reasons. For one, it’s filmmaker Kitty Green’s follow-up drama to her excellent narrative debut film, “The Assistant,” which tracked the Harvey Weinstein story from a lowly assistant POV. For two, it reunites her with the film’s star, Julia Garner, who has won Emmys for “Ozark” and put in a tremendous performance in “The Assistant.” Additionally, this new film, an outback drama, adds rising star Jessica Henwick to the mix known for “Iron Fist” and “The Matrix: Resurrections.
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The film also co-stars rising Aussie stars Toby Wallace, plus Hugo Weaving, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frechville, and Herbert Nordrum.
The film is inspired by the feature documentary “Hotel Coolgardie” (director Pete Gleeson), which Green first saw as a jury member at an Australian film festival in 2017. Green was riveted by the story of two young Scandinavian women trapped in an Australian mining town. She had seen films set in Aussie pubs, many of them in remote communities, but never one from this point of view, through a female lens.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Americans Hanna and Liv are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called’ The Royal Hotel’ in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture, but soon Hanna and Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.
Having just premiered in Telluride, “The Royal Hotel” shows up next at the Toronto International Film Festival, which begins this week. After that, Neon will release the drama in theaters on October 6. Watch the first trailer below.
 star in 'The Royal Hotel,' an outback dramatic thriller from director Kitty Green.){kind=link}