Top 50 Most Anticipated American Independent Films of 2019: #41. Wash Westmoreland’s The Earthquake Bird

The Earthquake Bird

A book to film project that was assembled late in 2016 and that takes place in on the cusp of the 1990’s Tokyo, Wash Westmoreland once again works with a sizeable budget for a truly international project that began production last May with the likes of Riley Keough and Alicia Vikander adding to the intrigue. The Earthquake Bird was initially an Amazon Studios project until Netflix nabbed the film. Westmoreland lost creative and true life partner Richard Glatzer at the height of his success of Oscar winner Still Alice, but has been in a creative spark since with Colette, and now this project where he teams up with Oldboy cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon for a first time.

Gist: Based on Susanna Jones’ novel, set in Tokyo, this revolves around a young female expat (Riley Keough) who is suspected of murder when her friend (Alicia Vikander) goes missing in the wake of a tumultuous love triangle with Teiji (Kobayashi), a handsome and mysterious local photographer.

Release Date/Prediction: With Netflix on board, we imagine a fest premiere at a fest such as TIFF prior to wide release on the platform.