The Neon folks are packing their backpacks for The Royal Hotel landing the North American rights to Kitty Green’s new feature film that is just months away from production. We’ve been on the Green-train since Ukraine Is Not a Brothel and he prowess was only confirmed when since Casting JonBenet broke out at Sundance in 2017. We had reported back in March on the project when her The Assistant thesp Julia Garner returned to the fold – since then Hugo Weaving and Jessica Henwick have been added to the project – production begins this summer in Australia. Sundance programmers will be eyeing this project but it could easily wait it out for Cannes prestige.
Written by Oscar Redding and Green, inspired by real events, this follows Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Henwick) who are best friends backpacking in Australia and running out of money. After Hanna takes a job behind the bar of a mining town pub called The Royal Hotel, the bar owner, played by Weaving, and locals introduce the girls to an Aussie drinking culture that turns nasty as Hanna and Liv find their lives rapidly spinning out of control.
