2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: A.J. Edwards’ Friday’s Child

A Terrence Malick school of cinema apprentice, there are certain parallels that can be drawn between the ethos, pathos or filmmaker conditioning of A.J. Edwards. It’s no accident that Tye Sheridan that toplines (he got his start in The Tree of Life).With no release date, or trade news mentions, post-production will have lasted at least two years for this shot in Waco, Texas. Edwards began his life behind the camera with the 2014 Sundance New Frontier section selected The Better Angels (here is our interview with the filmmaker) which we called a “sponging both formal technique and spiritual inflection to create a film that looks, sounds and feels like the work of Malick, yet stands as something new, fresh and fully formed”. Starring Sheridan, Imogen Poots, Caleb Landry Jones, Jeffrey Wright and Brett Butler, Friday’s Child sounds like a future cousin to Malick’s own Badlands.

Gist: Written by A.J. Edwards and Michael Dolan, the film is a modern day redemption story set in Waco, Texas. Joan (Poots), whose father is murdered by Richie (Sheridan). Not knowing the young drifter is the source of her suffering, Richie and Joan strike up an unlikely bond during the period of her grief. As complications grow, it is only through Joan that Richie can find redemption. Joan’s own struggle is one of learning to forgive the most heinous of crimes, discovering that only in selflessness can there be peace.

Production Co./Producers:
Tyler Glodt, Christian Sosa and Nicolas Gonda (Song to Song).

Prediction: Rotterdam or Berlin are musts if Sundance manages to lasso the world premiere. This could land in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section or this could be kept for biggies such as Cannes, Locarno or Venice.