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Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. This week we’re talking to Rosie Fellner, who recently produced The Uninvited, a dark comedy starring Walton Goggins, Elizabeth Reaser, Pedro Pascal, Rufus Sewell and Lois Smith. The British producer talks about her career as a multihyphenate and why she’s passionate about supporting first-time filmmakers through her new shingle Rosebud Pictures.

Rosie Fellner loves a puzzle. “I love putting things together – I’m a doer and like the puzzle of putting financing together for projects I’m passionate about,” the UK native tells Deadline.

So, for Fellner, who began her career as an actor on cult British comedy TV series The Fast Show before taking roles in Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip, The Face of an Angel and, more recently,...

Exclusive: SpectreVision, the genre-focused production company led by Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah, and Lawrence Inglee, on Monday announced the launch of SpectreVision Artists, a management arm headed by Antonio D’Intino and Christina Campagnola.

The intention behind the new division is to extend the company’s ethos of supporting creators who think outside the box. SpectreVision’s client roster will include directors such as Brendan Bellomo, DGA Award winner for the recently Oscar-nominated documentary The Porcelain War; Bryn Chainey, whose feature debut Rabbit Trap, starring Dev Patel, just premiered at Sundance; Sean Price Williams, the veteran Dp whose directorial debut The Sweet East premiered at Cannes in 2023; Alex Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, the creatives behind Save Yourselves! and the upcoming Wicker; Rod Blackhurst; Jodi Wille; Carolina Markowicz; Keith Thomas; Rachel Wolther (The French Italian...

Great news, Dev Patel fans—A24 just acquired the rights to his upcoming thriller movie, The Peasant, which he will direct and star in. To get you all pumped up, the new project is described as a blend of Braveheart and John Wick with a touch of King Arthur vibes because of its medieval setting.

Patel’s new movie first gained attention after it was featured on 2023 Black List, which basically highlighted several unproduced screenplays for that year. Since the actor’s takeover, it has gone through a significant development: from the initial plan of an Italian backdrop to a reimagined feudal version of India.

Dev Patel and A24 gear up for the upcoming revenge thriller The Peasant

Dev Patel expands his portfolio as he ventures into another bold and creative project which he hopes to turn into a massive franchise. Deadline reported that the deal closed in on $30 million.

Dev Patel’s second outing as director following Monkey Man, The Peasant, has officially been picked up by A24 for worldwide distribution in a deal that reports are pegging around $30 million.

The Peasant was part of the 2023 Black List, the annual survey of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. Said screenplay is by both Patel and Will Dunn, who wrote the story and script for the final episode of Ms. Marvel. It seems as if the success of Monkey Man – which easily made back its budget and received wide acclaim – helped get it off of that list and into production. The Peasant is produced by Thunder Road Pictures.

As for plot details, the Black List had the following blurb for The Peasant: “In the 14th Century, a lone shepherd rages against a company of mercenary knights after they ransack his peaceful peasant community, proving that he is more than he seems.

Oscar-nominated actor Dev Patel is on his way to solidifying himself as an action hero. After starring in 2024’s Monkey Man, Patel’s next feature, the revenge action-thriller The Peasant, has been acquired by A24 the day before the Cannes market, per Deadline.

The deal was a competitive one that closed in the range of $30 million in a Cannes market low on action movies this year. The Peasant will be up for sale in international markets in the near future. Patel will not only star in The Peasant, but also co-wrote the script for the film with Will Dunn (Ms. Marvel), and will direct the movie.

The project is described as having elements of Braveheartand John Wick, and a King Arthur feel to it. The film is expected to shoot later this year, and there are rumors that The Peasant could become its own franchise. This isn’t the first...

Exclusive: Dev Patel’s revenge action-thriller The Peasant has been snapped up by A24 in a splashy deal on the eve of the Cannes market.

We understand the pact closed in the $30M range last night after a competitive situation. It’s a Cannes market low on buzzy action movies and this one has a unique premise and strong elements so was taken off the table by A24. It will be on sale for international territories going forward.

The 2023 Black List project is being described as having shades of Braveheart and John Wick as well as notes of King Arthur. After being updated by Patel, the script combines medieval knights with feudal India. Set in the 1300s, it centers on a shepherd who embarks on a rage-fueled campaign against a group of mercenary knights who ransacked his community, revealing himself to be more than he seems.

John Wick outfit Thunder Road...

Dev Patel continues to reinvent himself as an action star after his directorial debut with Monkey Man. In Monkey Man, Patel showed off his new prowess with a buff bod and fighting skills to get revenge on the corrupt Indian politician who slaughtered his village. And it seems as that film was not a one-and-done for Patel’s new direction. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the star will write, direct, and lead The Peasant, an unconventional period action thriller from Fifth Season Productions and Thunder Road Pictures.

The project reunites Patel with Thunder Road Productions, which produced Monkey Man. Per THR, the thriller is set “in the 1300s, it centers on a shepherd who embarks on a rage-fueled campaign against a group of mercenary knights who ransacked his community, revealing himself to be more than he seems.” It was also “being described as having shades of Braveheart and John Wick...

Dev Patel is continuing to establish his triple threat filmmaking skills, coming on board to write, direct and star in The Peasant, a unique period action thriller from Fifth Season and Thunder Road Pictures. Patel will also produce via his Minor Realm production shingle.

The project reunites Patel with Thunder Road, which produced Monkey Man, his feature directorial debut, which he also co-wrote and in which he starred.

An adrenalized revenge thriller, the project is being described as having shades of Braveheart and John Wick as well as notes of King Arthur as it mashes up medieval knights with feudal India.

Set in the 1300s, it centers on a shepherd who embarks on a rage-fueled campaign against a group of mercenary knights who ransacked his community, revealing himself to be more than he seems.

Fifth Season, which is financing the feature as well as producing it, initially developed the project with Will Dunn,...

There are several moments in Rabbit Trap when the boundaries between sound and space, dream and reality, begin to fray. Sound is not merely an element of the film’s atmosphere — it is its driving force, the unseen terror pressing in on the psyche of its characters. Bryn Chainey’s debut feature is a folk horror film, an erotic thriller, and an experimental meditation on the relationship between perception, memory, and fear. At its core, Rabbit Trap explores the eerie interplay between human connection, artistic obsession, and nature’s ability to resist control.

'Rabbit Trap' Is a Sonic Descent Into the Uncanny

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Rabbit TrapHorrorMysteryThriller4/5Release DateJanuary 24, 2025Runtime97 MinutesDirectorBryn ChaineyWritersBryn ChaineyProducersDaniel Noah, Elijah Wood, Adrian Politowski, Lawrence Inglee, Nadia Khamlichi, Dev Patel, Elisa Lleras, Martin Metz, Alex Ashworth, Sean Marley,...

The sustained snowfall in Berlin reflected a cool but steady first half of EFM 2025, defined largely by a shortfall in must-have big packages.

Amid reduced buyer presence, particularly from Asia, and with many buyers leaving on Sunday, the EFM has mostly been used by sellers to round off sales on pre-existing slates.

One big talking point is whether the new Berlinale and EFM leadership can bring back bigger sales titles and craft a heavyweight festival selection extending into the second week to lure back attendees who fly to London for the Baftas mid-festival.

Festival director Tricia Tuttle’s first programme...

The sustained snowfall in Berlin reflected a cool but steady first half of EFM 2025, defined largely by a shortfall in must-have big packages.

Amid reduced buyer presence, particularly from Asia, and with many buyers leaving on Sunday, the EFM has mostly been used by sellers to round off sales on pre-existing slates.

One big talking point is whether the new Berlinale and EFM leadership can bring back bigger sales titles and craft a heavyweight festival selection extending into the second week to lure back attendees who fly to London for the Baftas mid-festival.

Festival director Tricia Tuttle’s first programme...

As the 2025 Ee BAFTA Film Awards got underway on Sunday in London, a slew of stars hit the red carpet. The guest list includes a number of performers nominated this year, including Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Demi Moore, Timothée Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Isabella Rossellini, Mikey Madison, Ralph Fiennes, Denis Villeneuve, Colman Domingo, Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Strong, Sebastian Stan, Saoirse Ronan, Sean Baker, Marianna Jean-Baptiste, Guy Pearce, Hugh Grant and plenty more.

“Conclave” leads the pack of 2025 BAFTA Film Awards nominees with 12 nods, one more than “Emilia Pérez.” “The Brutalist,” meanwhile, received nine nominations, including best film, director (Brady Corbet) and actor (Adrien Brody), followed by seven each for “Anora,” “Dune: Part Two” and “Wicked.” Of those three, only “Anora” made the cut for best film and director (Sean Baker). Coralie Fargeat landed the last spot in the director category, for “The Substance.” She, like Baker and Corbet,...

It’s always thrilling when a horror film explores the power and possibility of sound. Much modern horror is too quiet, missing the opportunity to create an immersive soundscape that fully transports viewers into its world. Writer-director Bryn Chainey’s debut feature Rabbit Trap tells a wholly immersive horror story, using its soundscape to send viewers through time and space, this world and the next.

Darcy Davenport (Dev Patel) just moved into a Welsh country home with his wife Daphne (Rosy McEwen), an experimental artist who incorporates natural sound into her music. It’s 1976, and music is dreamy and psychedelic, recorded on a variety of analog equipment. They work together, recording and producing in their home, far from other people. They’re a happy couple but Darcy has trauma from his childhood that troubles him at night, giving him terrors in his sleep. One night Daphne records one of them and plays it for him.

Deep into Rabbit Trap, the directorial debut of Bryn Chainey, a character mentions that “with your eyes you enter the world. With your ears, the world enters you.” While sound has always been essential to horror, it has rarely felt as especially oppressive and overwhelming as it does throughout Rabbit Trap, with Chainey aiming to unsettle the audience more aurally than visually. It’s an ingenious idea, one of many that Rabbit Trap has that doesn’t entirely work as well as one would hope. But while many films could crumble under that, Rabbit Trap feels more like a promising introduction to Chainey, rather than a film defined by its flawed and untapped potential.

Bryn Chainey’s “Rabbit Trap,” starring Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen, and Jade Croot, is a three-hander folk horror deeply rooted in Welsh lore and the precarious balance between humans and the natural world. It concerns a couple (Patel and McEwen) living in a remote cottage who suddenly have a strange child (Croot) burrowing into their lives after they disturb a Tylwyth Teg fairy ring.

“You might try to bury something, but something, it’ll grow,” Chainey said of the traumas lurking at the fringes of the new Midnight section thriller. “I grew up loving the illustrations of Brian Froud. He’s the guy that designed ‘The Dark Crystal’ and ‘Labyrinth,’ and he wrote these amazing books about fairies and goblins and pixies, all the folklore of the Celtic part of the U.K.”

“For me as a kid, these things were real, they were just an extension of nature,” Chainey continued.

The Midnight strand at the Sundance Film Festival has come into its own in the last few years, showcasing films that push the increasingly conservative boundaries of genre. One of this year’s offerings — the U.K.-shot Rabbit Trap, written and directed by Bryn Chainey — did that a little too successfully for some. Drawing on ancient folklore, fables and myths, Chainey’s film was branded a ‘folk horror’, a promise the film could not live up to.

Though it is certainly disturbing at times, Rabbit Trap is hard to describe and even harder to put a category to, which is appropriate since the whole film is trying to talk about things that cannot be put into words. It stars Dev Patel as Darcy, who works as a sound engineer for his wife Daphne (Rosy McEwan), who makes experimental music at their home in a remote Welsh cottage. The year...

What's the difference between folk horror and cosmic horror? Those two particular subgenres of horror films are a bit of a conundrum — they have arguably the oldest roots of all forms of horror, but they're relatively new when it comes to their definitions. In layman's terms, cosmic horror tends to refer to the type of fear elicited by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, the idea that there are natural, ancient, and eternal forces on Earth and in the universe that are beyond human comprehension. Folk horror typically involves mythology, folklore, and religions that are specific to a certain region or culture. You can see from those loose definitions how one could easily be confused for the other, as well as how both are complimentary enough to co-exist in the same film. Several recent cosmic horror films (like Ben Wheatley's "In the Earth") have elements of folk horror, and some...

Park City – Oh, this movie is gonna be a thing. The directorial debut of writer Alex Russell, “Lurker” is the sort of film that lingers with you for days. Especially if you’ve spent even a week working tangentially in the entertainment industry. Although that reference suggests this tale has limited appeal which isn’t the case whatsoever.

Read More: “Rabbit Trap” Review: Dev Patel records spirits in a sound design masterwork [Sundance]

A world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, “Lurker” starts off innocently enough.

Continue reading ‘Lurker’ Review: Alex Russell Masterfully Dissects The Fanatic In Pop Star Fandom [Sundance] at The Playlist.

At Sunday night’s premiere of “Together,” a body-horror film starring real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the Eccles Theatre erupted with shrieks, nervous laughter and cries of “Oh, shit!” Sundance audiences couldn’t get enough of the gory madness unfolding on-screen, and word quickly spread that “Together,” with its twisty look at relationships and gross-out set-pieces, had all the elements of an indie breakout. Studios and streamers, including A24 and Neon, started circling the film, trying to one-up each other in a feverish effort to land the buzzy project. The festival was already well underway, but it finally seemed like old times.

Before Covid upended things, leaving the indie film business that Sundance showcases struggling to regain its footing, the festival routinely hosted fierce bidding wars of the kind “Together” inspired. But with ticket sales in a rut, entertainment companies have been hesitant to hand out big...

Horror films aren’t exactly known for their subtlety, but The Thing With Feathers has no subtlety in sight. On paper, The Thing With Feathers does seem like the type of film that could be an ambitious swing and a miss, but thanks to confident direction by Dylan Southern and a phenomenal leading turn by Benedict Cumberbatch, it’s easy to overlook some of the film’s narrative simplicities.

The Thing With Feathers Review

Based on the novel by Max Porter, The Thing With Feathers follows a grieving widower who is struggling to raise his two sons as a single father when his grief begins to manifest itself in physical ways. Tonally, the film offers a combination of family drama and psychological horror, and it manages to strike this balance in a way that is compelling and challenging.

Related Rabbit Trap Sundance Review — Even Dev Patel Can’t Save This...

When it comes to festival midnight films, sometimes it’s best to go in blind and with a lack of anticipation. Rabbit Trap, the directorial debut of Bryn Chieny, stars Dev Patel (Monkey Man) and is produced by Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings), which was enough of a hook for this writer. Unfortunately, even with minimal expectations, Rabbit Trap was massively disappointing.

Rabbit Trap Review

Rabbit Trap follows a married musician couple who move to a remote cabin in Wales, where they record a mysterious (and perhaps mystical) sound and meet a strange child who may be harboring a dark secret. Considering that spooky sounds and mysticism are two of the most eerie things there are, this film should work, but it just completely falls apart.

Related By Design Sundance Review — A Bizarre and Utterly Unique Feminist Genre Picture

The concept behind Rabbit Trap is pretty fascinating. It’s...

The feeling of watching the film Rabbit Trap is one that is comparable perhaps only to the first time you hear your favorite song through a pair of actually good headphones. What was once a familiar old friend, is now something new, something different. Where once only silence was heard, now new frequencies and new sonic pathways open up from places that always dwelled under the surface, yet until now had never been accessible to you. Yes, this film is quite a bit like that.

Rabbit Trap is the story of Daphne (Rosy McEwan), an analog synth obsessed avant-garde musician, and her husband, Darcy (Dev Patel), a introverted sound designer who spends his days lugging his audio equipment into the forest to record the sounds of nature at work. Seeking to immerse themselves in both their art and their relationship, the couple decides to sequester themselves in a scaredy populated forest home in Wales.

Align, the Los Angeles-based financier and production company launched by Adrian Politowski and Nadia Khamlichi in 2019, has closed its second fund, Take Two, to pump $120m worth of financing into international feature film and TV drama over the next four years.

The company, which provides bridge loans, and cash flows presales and tax credits as well as offering gap financing, is involved in three features premiering in Sundance this week: Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa, starring Olivia Colman and John Lithgow; Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap starring Dev Patel; and Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which...

A brand new British folk horror creation has revealed itself at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Rabbit Trap is the feature directorial debut of up-and-coming British-Australian filmmaker Bryn Chainey, who both wrote and directed this film. Yet another extremely personal project based on his own worst fears and experiences, like many filmmakers trying to work through them by making a film about them. Rabbit Trap is set in 1976 and follows a young married couple who live out in the wilderness in rural England in a little cabin. While living out there alone, trying to make unique music and record natural sounds, they end up encountering some strange supernatural forces. This sends them into a tizzy as they attempt to make sense of what is going on – and it gets especially weird when a mysterious kid randomly shows up and works his/her way into their life. There are some intriguing ideas...

The Sundance Film Festival has begun and journalists, actors, directors, writers, agents, producers and film buffs have taken over the once-sleepy town of Park City, Utah for Hollywood’s premiere indie showcase. Together, they hop from screening to screening in hopes of witnessing the next big breakout hit. Some of this year’s most anticipated films include “Bunnylovr” from first-time director Katarina Zhu, “The Thing with Feathers” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and the Dev Patel thriller “Rabbit Trap.”

Between all the glitzy premieres, the Variety Studio presented by Audible remains a destination for actors and filmmakers alike. Stars such as Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien, John Lithgow and Carey Mulligan all stopped by to discuss their new projects and snap a picture in the portrait studio. Check out the photos from this year’s Sundance Studio and see which stars stopped by.

Plot: A married couple (Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen) living in an isolated home in the Welsh countryside encounter a mysterious child (Jade Croot), whose sudden, intense devotion to them suggests something sinister is afoot.

Review: Rabbit Trap is another entry into Sundance’s much-celebrated midnight section, a programme which has given us such horror gems as The Babadook, Hereditary, Talk To Me, and last year’s I Saw the TV Glow. Rabbit Trap, which comes from Elijah Wood’s Spectrevision label, is impeccably crafted and acted, but despite its programmed section, it doesn’t seem particularly interested in being a horror film. Instead, it’s more cerebral fare deeply rooted in Welsh folklore.

In it, Rosy McEwen plays Daphne, an experimental musician who composes atonal music using sounds recorded in nature by her audiophile husband, Darcy (Dev Patel). Set in 1976, they poor over their vintage audio equipment to put...

“With your eyes, you enter the world. With your ears, the world enters you,” an ethereal voice begins, followed by a sonic sensory assault that trips the power in an isolated Welsh countryside cottage. The aural and visual interpretation of sound in the introduction of writer/director Bryn Chainey’s feature debut, Rabbit Trap, signals an innovative new take on Celtic folk horror ahead. Instead, sound becomes less and less of a focal point as Chainey leans into cryptic Fae folklore and oblique storytelling.

The couple responsible for the opening’s cottage-shaking sensory assault is married couple Darcy (Dev Patel) and Daphne (Rose McEwen). The pair recently purchased the home to further their creative pursuits. Darcy is a sound recordist who spends his days roaming the countryside collecting nature audio with his boom mic. Daphne then uses his recordings to create her niche style of music. But in opening themselves...

Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap explores 1976, a time of social transformation, where Darcy (Dev Patel) and Daphne (Rosy McEwen) seek refuge in a secluded Welsh farmhouse, becoming entangled with local myths and their internal conflicts. The Welsh landscape—misted moors and silent woodlands—emerges as a living entity, pregnant with untold stories and oppressive quiet.

This narrative transcends a simple rural retreat, creating a charged environment where human experiences intersect with elemental energies. The year’s economic tension and cultural shifts echo the characters’ struggle to connect with primal experiences.

Darcy’s sound recordings and Daphne’s experimental music reveal their attempts to understand surrounding wilderness, yet ultimately highlight their growing disconnection. The deteriorating farmhouse speaks to their fractured relationship, serving as a physical manifestation of emotional disintegration.

Sound and Music: The Heart of the Film

Bryn Chainey’s film Rabbit Trap weaves sound into the narrative fabric, transforming it...

Park City – Often, but not always, you need to tip your cap to a filmmaker willing to push boundaries with their debut feature film. Frankly, as a director, you never know if you’re gonna get that chance (or budget) again. Taking risks is a roll of the dice. You don’t always win. Such is the case with writer and director Bryn Chainey, who, after almost 20 years of making short films, collaborates with sound designer Graham Reznick and composer Lucrecia Dalt for “Rabbit Trap,” a fantastical thriller that is, first and foremost, a cinematic audio masterwork.

Continue reading ‘Rabbit Trap’ Review: Dev Patel Records Spirits In A Sound Design Masterwork [Sundance] at The Playlist.

If you were to watch the first 10 to 15 minutes of “Rabbit Trap,” the fundamentally flawed feature debut of writer/director Bryn Chainey, and stop there, you might think you were witnessing the start of a unique horror vision. In particular, the way the film uses sound in these opening scenes feels like something special; it takes on a sinister resonance, almost as if it’s tapping into another plane of existence. You can practically feel it rattling through your bones and deep into the recesses of your mind. It’s a great way to open.

Then, just when you are starting to get interested in how it will manage to keep drawing you in deeper, “Rabbit Trap” reveals it actually won’t be doing that. Instead, the film starring Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen takes a shockingly steep dive into narrative tedium and ho-hum genre beats. What initially begins as...

In British writer-director Bryn Chaney’s feature debut, he uses Celtic folklore and the intimacy of sound to unpack a darkness that some might struggle to put in words.

Set in 1973, Rabbit Trap stars Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen as Darcy and Daphne, an influential musical couple from London who retreats to an isolated cabin in the Welsh countryside to finish their next album. But when Darcy records a sound not meant for human ears, he accidentally conjures ancient mystical beings from the forest.

Best viewed in Dolby, the film utilizes hypnotic sounds in every scene, largely through the field recordings made by Darcy in the surrounding woods. In addition to sounds of dripping water, clanging metal and crunching grass, Darcy demonstrates how the medium is sacred as he explains that “sound is a ghost … and your body is the house it haunts.”

After recording strange sounds in the forest,...

In the Welsh folk-horror “Rabbit Trap,” debuting director Bryn Chainey creates an disquieting acoustic atmosphere and guides his trio of actors to powerful performances. However, these flourishes serve a muddled piece that coasts on its interpretability alone. Its dramatic mechanics and aesthetics never quite coalesce into something appropriately visceral, spiritual, or meaningful, despite the story’s frequent symbolism.

The film, debuting at Sundance, comes front-loaded with intrigue. Married couple Darcy (Dev Patel) and Daphne (Rosy McEwen) live in relative isolation in the Welsh countryside. The year is 1976, and their home is filled, wall to wall, with analog audio equipment. Daphne uses it to create her avant-garde music, born of the noises Darcy records with his boom mic while out on winding strolls. However, when a bizarre signal he can’t explain draws him to a circle of mushrooms in the woods — a “fairy circle” in Welsh folklore — a mysterious, anonymous,...

A tradition stretching back to genre pioneers like 1973’s pagan freakout The Wicker Man, British folk horror can be bonkers (Alex Garland’s Men), hypnotically abstract (Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men) or disorienting (Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth). What it ideally shouldn’t be is boring. Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap has a creepy sense of dread, striking images of invasive nature and an intriguing baseline about the otherworldly properties of sound, making it a somewhat promising debut feature. “With your eyes you enter the world, with your ears the world enters you,” says one of the characters. Which would mean something if the muddled story were coherent enough to achieve any kind of psychological penetration.

The lesson here might be read as: Don’t go poking around ancient woodlands with recording devices, and whatever you do, don’t go mixing what you find into grating avant-garde “music” and...

In Rabbit Trap, a musician and her husband find their outsider status in a remote Wales town amplified when their music brings to the door an unnamed child who will stop at nothing to weasel into their lives. Shot on 35mm, debut feature by director Bryn Chainey will play as part of the Midnights section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Andreas Johannessen, who served as camera operator on The Worst Person in the World and has acted as cinematographer on music videos by Jenny Hval, among others, also makes his feature debut as Dp. Below, he goes into detail about the […]

The post “Horror Films Have a Unique Ability to Tap into Deep Emotions”: Dp Andreas Johannessen on Rabbit Trap first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Rabbit Trap, a musician and her husband find their outsider status in a remote Wales town amplified when their music brings to the door an unnamed child who will stop at nothing to weasel into their lives. Shot on 35mm, debut feature by director Bryn Chainey will play as part of the Midnights section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Andreas Johannessen, who served as camera operator on The Worst Person in the World and has acted as cinematographer on music videos by Jenny Hval, among others, also makes his feature debut as Dp. Below, he goes into detail about the […]

The post “Horror Films Have a Unique Ability to Tap into Deep Emotions”: Dp Andreas Johannessen on Rabbit Trap first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Among another impressive stack of new horror titles looking to spook audiences at this year’s Sundance, “Rabbit Trap” joins a growing library of psychological folk horrors that have recently offered more (deeply) unsettling creeps than out-and-out scares.

Bowing in the Midnight slot in Park City on Friday and the feature debut of Brit director Bryn Chainey, the film doesn’t just boast an Oscar nominee in Dev Patel among its somewhat limited cast (there are only three characters in the entire feature), but comes with the backing of Elijah Wood’s SpectreVision.

Set in 1976 in rural Wales, “Rabbit Trap” centers on Daphne Davenport (“Blue Jean” breakout Rosy McEwen), an experimental electronic musician who, alongside her troubled husband and collaborator Darcy (Patel), has moved to a remote abandoned farmhouse in the countryside. It’s here where, equipped with a wild laboratory of analogue synthesizers, tape decks, theremins and very little else,...

Set in 1976, writer-director Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap follows a couple (Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen) who decide to move to a house in the Welsh countryside. Musicians by trade, they unwittingly unleash an eldritch horror through the songs that they make, culminating in an eerie, unnamed child showing up at their doorstep. Below, Bachman speaks about the two dominant ideas kept in mind while cutting Rabbit Trap, the intense sound design process and the importance of trusting one’s audience. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor […]

The post “The Power of Sounds, Spells, and the Sublime Unknown”: Editor Brett W. Bachman on Rabbit Trap first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Set in 1976, writer-director Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap follows a couple (Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen) who decide to move to a house in the Welsh countryside. Musicians by trade, they unwittingly unleash an eldritch horror through the songs that they make, culminating in an eerie, unnamed child showing up at their doorstep. Below, Bachman speaks about the two dominant ideas kept in mind while cutting Rabbit Trap, the intense sound design process and the importance of trusting one’s audience. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor […]

The post “The Power of Sounds, Spells, and the Sublime Unknown”: Editor Brett W. Bachman on Rabbit Trap first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The annual IndieWire Studio at Sundance returns for the 2025 edition of the Park City festival. It will feature interviews with the talent behind 25 of the most anticipated films of the festival with discussions taking place in-person on Main Street.

Presented by Dropbox, the IndieWire Studio at Sundance will welcome actors, directors, producers, screenwriters, and documentary subjects for exclusive video interviews with IndieWire’s senior staff starting Friday January 24.

Among the talent we’ll be welcoming to the studio are Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna (“Kiss of the Spiderwoman”), Josh O’Connor (“Rebuilding”), Sarah Jessica Parker (“The Librarians”), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (“Sly Lives!”), Marlee Matlin (“Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore”), Olivia Colman and John Lithgow (“Jimpa”), Alia Shawkat and Callum Turner (“Atropia”), Juliette Lewis (“By Design”), Rachel Sennott (“Bunnylovr”), Joel Edgerton and Kerry Condon (“Train Dreams”), Molly Gordon and Geraldine Viswanathan, Dave Franco and Alison Brie (“Together” plus Franco for “Bubble & Squeak...

Another Sundance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, bringing a new slate of genre discoveries. While the buzziest horror titles, like A24’s Opus, have already caught the attention of horror fans, Sundance excels at introducing emerging filmmakers and thrilling feature debuts.

Other anticipated horror premieres from the upcoming slate of programming includes Alison Brie and Dave Franco‘s co-dependency horror movie Together, and SpectreVision’s Celtic Faerie horror Rabbit Trap starring Dev Patel. But it’s only the start of the horror we can’t wait to check out at this year’s fest.

This year’s Sundance features horror across all categories, ensuring a robust lineup of genre titles. Here are five we absolutely can’t wait to see.

Dead Lover

Dead Lover, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The latest by Booger filmmaker Grace Glowicki once again sees...

It’s time for the Sundance Film Festival, and once again I’ll be heading to Utah to bring readers of JoBlo loads of reviews of all the latest indie flicks coming soon to a theater (or streaming service) near you. Located in Park City, Utah (for now anyways), Sundance is always one of my favorite events of the year. Being a movie fan, I love nothing more than binging on movies in the same festival that gave birth to the directing careers of legends like Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Jordan Peele, Damien Chazelle, and so many more.

As has been the case for the last decade or so, the festival is jam-packed with horror flicks, as studios – in particular A24 – have had some major breakouts there, including The Babadook, The Guest, Hereditary, Talk to Me, and last year’s I Saw the TV Glow. So what are we psyched to see?...

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week in Park City, Utah, launching the first major festival of the year and one of the biggest markets for film. Sundance is, of course, home to a slew of independent films seeking distribution. It’s where movies like “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Call Me by Your Name,” “Fruitvale Station” and “Palm Springs” got their start, and this year’s lineup is chock-full of true indies looking for a home.

Below, TheWrap rounded up some of the buzziest titles for sale at this year’s festival.

Tonatiuh and Diego Luna appear in Kiss of the Spider Woman by Bill Condon (Sundance) “Kiss of the Spider-Woman”

Valentín, a political prisoner, shares a cell with Molina, a window dresser convicted of public indecency. The two form an unlikely bond as Molina recounts the plot of a Hollywood musical starring his favorite silver screen diva,...

The 2025 edition of the Sundance Film Festival is a little over a week away and it’s time for us to talk about movies that will be the talk of Sundance, movies that push the envelope of imagination and reality, movies that should not be missed and lastly underrated movies that are a must watch as well. The list below is not comprehensive and the goal is not to rank order any of the movies in this list. From films by critically acclaimed directors like Ira Sachs and Richard Linklater to actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Diego Luna, Olivia Coleman, Dev Patel, Jennifer Lopez and Rose Bryne, the list also focuses on independent films by new exciting directors and filmmakers to look out for in the future. In no particular order, we are listing 25 feature films that are a must watch if you are planning to check out the festival.

Jimpa...

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its buzzy Beyond Film lineup with top filmmakers in attendance.

The Beyond Film program will take place in-person from January 24-31; the festival films will become available to audiences across the country on the online Festival Platform throughout the week. The festival will take place from January 23 to February 2 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah.

Highlights of the Beyond Film panels include conversations with Chloë Sevigny — who appears in two Sundance 2025 films, “Atropia” and “Magic Farm” — Olivia Colman (“Jimpa”), Marlee Matlin (“Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore”), and Steven Yeun, who stars in and produces “Bubble & Squeak.”

“Past Lives” writer/director Celine Song, Daniel Kaluuya, and “Guardians of the Galaxy” writer Nicole Perlman are also among the panelists. A live podcast recording of Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah’s “Visitations” will additionally take place; Wood and Noah both produce “Rabbit Trap,” which premieres at the festival.

After the viral Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest held in New York City in October, several other contests began to pop up across the globe, from a Harry Styles one in London to a Paul Mescal one in Dublin. Oscar-nominated actor Dev Patel got his very own lookalike competition in San Francisco in November in an event that gathered over 500 people. When asked whether he had heard about the event, the actor instantly laughs and lets out a hearty: “Oh, yes. I have heard all about it!”

“I’m surprised more than five people showed up,” he continues. “I was quite overwhelmed by it and very touched. I also gotta say that I think most of the men who showed up were far more handsome and qualified than I am. I think I would have lost at my own lookalike contest, for sure.”

Patel says he found the whole contest to...

Top L–R: The Legend of Ochi, Rabbit Trap, East of Wall, Seeds Center Row L–R: Rebuilding, Together, Love, Brooklyn, Jimpa Bottom L–R: Hal & Harper, Selena y Los Dinos, The Dating Game, Brides screen at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival‘s lineup will include 87 feature films and six episodic projects. Sundance received 15,775 submissions from 156 countries, including 4,138 feature-length film submissions. The 87 films selected represent 33 countries and territories, with 36 of the chosen films coming from first-time feature filmmakers.

“The Sundance Film Festival remains steadfast in its commitment to elevating unique and urgent voices in independent storytelling. Audiences can expect a 2025 program that showcases varied and vibrant filmmaking globally,” stated Robert Redford, Sundance Institute Founder and President.

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will run January 23rd through February 2nd. For ticket information, visit festival.sundance.org.

“The Festival is our most significant public program as an Institute and builds...

Just ahead of the new year, the Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its 2025 slate of programming that’s packed with exciting and buzzworthy new horror.

Today the fest announced their comprehensive slate of films selected from the fest that will take place January 23 –February 2, 2025, in person in Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort, along with a selection of films available online starting January 30. Packages and passes are available now at Sundance’s site.

We’ve combed through the entire slate today to find all the genre titles, with first-look images and information where available. Highlights from the upcoming slate of programming includes Alison Brie and Dave Franco‘s co-dependency horror movie Together, SpectreVision’s Celtic Faerie horror Rabbit Trap starring Dev Patel, and more.

What are you most excited to see at Sundance next year? Read on for all the horror heading to Sundance Film Festival 2025:...

Long-time indie actress Grace Glowicki, Sundance alumni in Meera Menon (2016’s Equity) and Bryn Chainey are among the seven film projects selected for the Midnight section – and it wouldn’t be impossible to see one last offering to be added to this line-up. Canuck actress Glowicki cast herself in the lead for her debut titled Dead Lover. Menon moves into a zombie apocalypse type setting with Didn’t Die. Chainey’s Rabbit Trap comes with a lot of hype plus Dev Patel in the lead role. Here are the seven:

Dead Lover / Canada –– A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea.…...

With snow on the ground and a cloud of uncertainty hanging over its next-to-last edition in Park City, the 41st annual Sundance Film Festival returns to its high-altitude Utah home, where the country’s most important showcase for independent cinema will unspool in person from Jan. 23-Feb. 2, 2025.

While “discovery” remains the focus of the programming team — to the extent that 36 of the 87 features were directed by first-time filmmakers, and three of the six episodic selections — the upcoming edition marks a homecoming for a handful of big names.

Twenty-seven years after “Gods and Monsters,” director Bill Condon returns with his starry take on “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” an adaptation of the stage musical featuring Diego Luna, Tonatiuh and Jennifer Lopez. Festival regular Ira Sachs is back, paying homage to an underground art hero with “Peter Hujar’s Day,” with Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall.

“Jockey” helmer Clint Bentley welcomes audiences aboard “Train Dreams,...

Sundance Film Festival’s 2025 line-up comprises 87 features, nearly half of which are directed by women, and is crammed with new work by returning stars and indie stalwarts including Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Lopez, Isabelle Huppert, Mark Ruffalo, and Dev Patel.

Among anticipated highlights are the feature directorial debut of UK playwright and incoming Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall with her Bankside Films sales title Brides inWorld Cinema Dramatic Competition,about teenage friends who plan to travel to Syria.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Peter Hujar’s Day, a drama in Premieres about the New York portrait photographer...