Filmbuff Hook-Up with Wigon’s Debut; “The Heart Machine” Pegged For October

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The FilmBuff have grabbed the rights to The Heart Machine – the thriller that preemed in SXSW’s eight film Narrative Feature Comp this past March. Produced by Lucas Joaquin (featured here) and Alex Scharfman and executive-produced by Parts & Labor’s Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Jordan Lewis, Abe Schwartz, Andrew Kelley, and Eric Schultz, Zachary Wigon’s directorial debut will hit theatrically and via VOD on October 24th.

Gist: Cody (John Gallagher Jr.) and Virginia (Kate Lyn Sheil) start talking while he’s in Brooklyn and she’s in Berlin. It’s a romance that could only happen online, and they’re happy together—except they’ve never really met. But Cody’s questions about Virginia’s life in Berlin become an obsession, leading him to doubt that she’s there at all. Combing NYC for clues about her whereabouts, an increasingly driven Cody begins overstepping boundaries of privacy in his desperate quest for answers.

Worth Noting: Prior to his feature film debut, the Tisch film graduate’s  steady film diet includes film criticism and filmmaking; his trio of shorts include Someone Else’s Heart (which was the winner of the Hammer to Nail short film contest) take the detour here.

Do We Care?: Having gotten some good buzz out of SXSW, this might not only make a convincing argument about the perils of our own voyeuristic tendencies, but specifically remind us that even today, that the advent of the internet has warped sped everything detailed in Orwell’s 1984. We swipe to the left on this indie hookup nightmare item.

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). He is a Golden Globes Voter, member of the ICS (International Cinephile Society) and AQCC (Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma).

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