Acquisitions – Foreign Films

Film Movement Moves into the Dark; Prochaska’s Western Saddling Up for 2015 Release

Published on March 18, 2014

A film genre that appears to have been perfected by the Aussies, judging by the tepid response (reviews from Variety, THR, IW) at it’s Berlin Film Fest premiere, Andreas Prochaska’s The Dark Valley is being called a revenge western that is all American. Screen Daily reports that the folks at Film Movement/RAM Releasing have lassoed the Sam Riley starring mountain-set pic for a 2015 theatrical release in the US and Canada, followed by VOD and DVD release.

Gist: A stranger (Riley) arrives in a European high mountain village where he is allowed to stay before the harsh winter. He introduces himself as a photographer from America, but nobody suspects that the foreigner is here to take revenge.

Worth Noting: An established television director, Prochaska broke out with 2006’s Dead in 3 Days — a Locarno Film Fest entry.

Do We Care?: The look of the film appears to be a plus, but it’ll take a lot of convincing for us to take the plunge with this title.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).