While TIFF has evolved into one of the most important film festivals of the year, launching many of the high profile films that will go on to serious awards season contention, its easy to forget about the hundreds of smaller films all vying for attention and that unfortunately get lost once Hollywood leaves town.
Well, this isn’t one of those stories. “The Wild Hunt,” the 2009 winner for Best Canadian First Feature Film at TIFF has been picked up and will hit theaters in both the U.S. and Canada this spring. Directed by Alexandre Franchi and written by Franchi and Mark Antony Krupa, the film is set in the world of LARP (live action role playing) where the lines between fantasy and reality between the participants slowly becomes blurred. The trailer (which you can see below) looks to be a wicked blend of sardonic humor, drama and flat-out suspense.
Here’s the synopsis from the official website:
A MODERN MEDIEVAL SAGA, The Wild Hunt tells the story of Erik Magnusson, a young man who decides to follow his estranged girlfriend Evelyn into a medieval re-enactment game when he discovers that she has been seduced by one of the players. As the down-to-earth Erik treks deeper into the game in search of his love, he inadvertently disrupts the delicate balance of the make believe fantasy-land. Passions are unleashed. Rules are broken. Reality and fantasy collide. The good-hearted game turns into a tragedy of mythic proportion…Capturing the culture of costume play and the potentially dangerous intersection of real and made-up worlds, The Wild Hunt is a timely and potent comment on the consuming nature of adopting another identity, even within a game, and the modern yearning for ritual.
“The Wild Hunt” will open in theaters in Canada on April 9th via TVA films and U.S. readers can look for the film on May 28th via Hannover House.
