Ever since breaking out twice with micro-indie The Midnight Swim and then with Buster’s Mal Heart, filmmaker Sarah Adina Smith has been mixing it up behind the camera working on TV Mini Series (most recently ‘Lessons in Chemistry,’ and feature film (her last was 2022’s The Drop). Her next project has to be her highest profile project in her filmography to date with a top pairing billing and a indie dream team producers backing the project. Deadline reports that Olivia Wilde and Gael García Bernal have boarded Monkey Hill — a psychological thriller that will be offered up at the upcoming American Film Market. The Population’s Mynette Louie and filmscience’s Neil Kopp, Vincent Savino and Anish Savjani are producing. Smith, Jonako Donley, Feroze Alameer, Christine D’Souza Gelb, Kyle Jaeger, and Julia Nelson executive-producing.
Written by Smith and based on the Paul Theroux story of the same name (originally published in his collection The Consul’s File (1977)), this is about a heiress accused of a white-collar crime hides away with her husband at a luxury resort in an Indian holy city. In deep denial of the growing scandal, they distract themselves with sexual escapades and spiritual dalliances. Meanwhile, the hotel staff who pamper them by the pool return each night to a village plagued by civil unrest and a deadly water crisis. When the couple ventures past the hotel gates that protect them, they awaken the sleeping giant of fate.
