IFC Midnight has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to “Wilding,” Variety has learned. The deal comes in advance of its world premiere at this year’s South by Southwest.
The film follows Anna (Bel Powley), a woman who spent her entire childhood locked in the attic, under the care of a mysterious man she only knows as Daddy (Brad Dourif). Anna is scared to death of a creature he calls the Wildling, a child-eating monster that roams outside. After a small-town sheriff Ellen Cooper (Liv Tyler) frees Anna and helps her start a new life, her childhood nightmares of the Wildling return, disrupting the possibility of a normal life. “Wildling” will debut theatrically and on VOD on April 13.
The film was directed by Fritz Böhm, and written by Böhm and Florian Eder. James Le Gros, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, and Mike Faist round out the cast.
“I’m thrilled to be working with IFC who truly understands ‘Wildling,’ which has been a labor of love. It’s the empowering story of a young woman who’s forced to fight for her freedom just because she’s different,” Fritz Böhm said.
IFC Midnight is a sister label to IFC Films and Sundance Selects, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc. Its films include a number of horror-tinged works, such as “The Babadook,” “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” and “Room 237.”
Powley is best known for her work in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl”; Dourif is an Oscar nominee for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and was part of the cast of “Deadwood”; and Tyler starred in the “Lord of the Rings” franchise and “That Thing You Do.”
“Wildling” was produced by Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray of Maven Pictures, and Charlotte Ubben, in co-production with Film i Väst, Filmgate Films, and ARRI Media, and in association with Global Road and Night Fox Entertainment. Maven previously collaborated with IFC on “Freak Show,” which marked Styler’s directorial debut.
The deal for the film was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, exec VP of acquisitions and production at Sundance Selects/IFC Films, with CAA representing the filmmakers. Global Road is handling international sales for the film.
