Jennifer Reeder’s latest has found a home. IFC Midnight snagged North American rights to “Knives and Skin.” The genre coming-of-age pic made its world premiere at the Berlinale and went on to screen at Tribeca, Fantasia, and Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival, among other fests. Deadline confirmed the acquisition.
Written an directed by Reeder, “Knives and Skin” is set in a rural Midwest town where highschooler Carolyn (Raven Whitley) disappears after being deserted at the lake by her boyfriend (Ty Olwin). “In the wake of Carolyn’s mysterious disappearance, a dark abyss widens among the inhabitants of Big River as the ripples of anxiety and mistrust begin to permeate through the high school halls and beyond,” Tribeca’s synopsis of the film hints. “In a series of intertwined suburban vignettes, fear and loss cause the members of Carolyn’s inner-circle to develop unexpected and desperate coping strategies as they slowly begin to unravel under the impact of their grief and suspicions.”
“I am a feminist and with the exception of one, all 50 or so of my films have been about the experiences of girls and women — especially the unruly ones,” Reeder has said. “I have always loved teen films and more recently I have been really into genre films like thriller/horror but specifically by female directors and/or directors of color. A trope of so very many thriller/horror films and television, however, is a dead or missing girl which is problematic for a feminist. So in this film, I wanted to deal with this issue directly,” she explained. “My dead girl is not just emblematic — she has purpose and will. Carolyn Harper is not erased or even erasable. Her death is not meaningless, it’s a call to action — a grrrl power battle cry. Additionally, she is all at once, a princess, a ghost, and a magical monster.”
IFC will release “Knives and Skin” in December.
“’Knives and Skin’ is exactly the film I set out to make, and it’s entirely from my heart,” commented Reeder, whose previous features include “Signature Move” and “Accidents at Home and How They Happen.” “I have long been a fan of IFC, and I am not taking this partnership for granted. IFC is the perfect home for the movie and I am deeply excited to share it with the world.”
