Hawkes, Dancy, Paulson, Corbet and Elizabeth Olsen Escape Towards ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’

Sean Durkin, a filmmaker I’ve been “keeping tabs” on prior to having seen his stunning/haunting Sundance preemed and Cannes-winning short short film, Mary Last Seen (he was a producer on Antonio Campos’ Afterschool) has been hard at work this summer.

Directly after the Sundance labs in June, Durkin got ready on his feature length film debut titled, Martha Marcy May Marlene. The make-up of the cast has been revealed, with Borderline entrusting the film’s lead to Elizabeth Olsen and filling out the cast we find: indie vet John Hawkes (who shifts to Soderbergh’s Contagion next), Sarah Paulson (mostly television work but also in The Spirit), Hugh Dancy (most recently from My Idiot Brother – which we’ll see next year) and Brady Corbet (fresh from Lars von Trier’s Melancholia). Filming is now in its second or third week in upstate New York — I believe it might be close to where the short film was set.

Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman (played by Olsen — Peace, Love & Misunderstanding) struggles to reassimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult. Durkin will produce with his BorderLine Films partners Josh Mond and Antonio Campos, and Ted Hope will exec produce with Andrew Renzi – who happens to be one of the folks that TheWrap eloquently mentioned from IONCINEMA’s inaugural American New Wave 25 members. And speaking of ANW25, the director of photography on this one is Jody Lee Lipes see — he has a pretty solid resume.