News

From its humble beginnings as a passion project made by director Michael Duignan and a group of dedicated Kiwi collaborators, The Paragon takes audiences on a quirkily delightful adventure. Working with a tiny budget of only $15,000 US dollars, the film never lets its financial limitations hold back its boundless imagination.

We’re introduced to Dutch, a grumpy ex-tennis pro nursing resentment after a hit-and-run accident destroyed his career. Seeking vengeance, he joins forces with mystical seer Lyra to learn psychic abilities and track down the elusive vehicle. But far greater forces are at work—Lyra is in a battle with her evil brother Haxan, who aims to control an all-powerful crystal. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, whether Dutch cares to notice or not.

Boasting creative flare and oddball charm, The Paragon nods to sci-fi classics of the 1980s while forging its own path. Director Duignan’s...

By the time this film begins, its hero, Dutch (Benedict Wall), has already died. Fortunately for the story, he got better, but he hasn’t forgotten what put him in that situation: a silver Ford Corolla that seemed to come out of nowhere. He blames the driver of the Ford Corolla for everything: the collapse of his career as a tennis coach with a special programme focused on undermining one’s opponent’s self esteem; the deterioration in his sexual and romantic life; his now permanent limp. He wants revenge. The only way he can think of to pursue it, however, is to wander round New Lynn asking strangers “Have you seen a silver Ford Corolla?” – a technique which proves to be of limited use. He’s losing his way. What he needs is some kind of sign.

The sign, when he finds it, is stuck to a lamp-post, with contact information on tear-away.

"You will find the paragon for me!" Doppelgänger Releasing has unveiled an official trailer for a film called The Paragon, made by New Zealand filmmaker Michael Duignan. This wacky lo-fi sci-fi thriller originally premiered at the 2023 New Zealand Film Festival last year, and is getting a theatrical debut in the US this fall. It was shot over 13 days in Auckland, New Zealand on a budget of around $15,000 in US dollars. That's a considerably tiny budget! Yet this still looks pretty damn good. The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. Everything converges towards the singularity in Michael Duignan's feature film debut, a "hilarious rift in space-time." Starring Benedict Wall, Florence Noble, Jessica Grace Smith, & Jonny Brugh. Reviews say it "gives its all, embracing its DIY nature to deliver a light and breezy sci-fi comedy,...

One of the year’s best examples of resourceful filmmaking, Michael Duignan’s fantasy comedy The Paragon was shot over just 13 days in Auckland, New Zealand for a budget of around $15,000 in U.S. dollars. After premiering to much acclaim at Rotterdam and Fantasia, Music Box Films’ genre label Doppelganger Releasing will now open it to kick off the fall and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the new trailer. The film will specifically open on September 6 in theaters at Alamo Drafthouse locations in NY, LA, Chicago, Denver, Austin, and more, as well as digitally.

“I wanted to tell a story about the most shallow person I could imagine looking for revenge but accidentally stumbling into a kind of spiritual enlightenment,” the director tells us. “I personally take these ideas seriously, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the universe is a big cosmic joke. So it turned...

For a film about saving the universe from cosmic evil, stakes couldn’t be lower in The Paragon. What begins as a man’s quest for revenge takes a hard left into the occult and psychedelic, but its scope never expands outside of a small-town setting and smaller-minded protagonist. If anything, the film can’t get any bigger if it wanted to; writer-director-editor-cinematographer Michael Duignan shot it in less than two weeks on a budget of $25,000 New Zealand dollars (that’s around $15K in US currency). In other words: the film couldn’t afford corners let alone cut them. But The Paragon gives its all, embracing its DIY nature to deliver a light and breezy sci-fi comedy, and what it lacks in budget it more than compensates for in low-key charm.

It starts one year after a hit and run left egotistical tennis player Dutch (Benedict Wall) with a limp on his right leg,...

Exclusive: New Zealand psychedelic comedy movie The Paragon has landed North American distribution.

Music Box Films and Doppelgänger Releasing have acquired the pic, which stars Benedict Wall, Florence Noble, and Jonny Brugh.

From writer-director Michael Duignan, the quirky saga follows Dutch, an angry former tennis coach whose life has fallen apart since he was the victim of a hit-and-run a year ago. In a bid to find the driver and take revenge, Dutch embarks on a strange psychic training course designed to unlock his latent mind powers.

“The Paragon is a tale of revenge, redemption and the confounding ways that each of our destinies is tangled up with strangers,” said Duignan. “We were a small team making a story about big ideas, powered by the sheer love and madness of making independent movies.”

Music Box Films is reviving its alternative distribution label Doppelgänger Releasing,...

The specialty box office and streaming space is ringing in 2021 with a peppering of new titles starting with Shadow in the Cloud starring Chloë Grace Moretz, which opens in select theaters and drops on VOD and digital starting January 1, 2021.

Directed by Roseanne Liang who co-wrote the script with Max Landis, Shadow in the Cloud is part war pic, part horror and part women empowerment. Set in World War II, the film follows Captain Maude Garrett (Moretz) who joins an all-male crew of a B-17 bomber with a top-secret package. Caught off guard by the presence of a woman on a military flight, the crew tests Maude’s every move. Just as her quick wit is winning them over, strange happenings and holes in her backstory incite paranoia surrounding her true mission. On top of all of this, there’s something lurking in the shadows — something sinister is tearing at the heart of the plane.

Actress Chloë Grace Moretz, aka 'Hit-Girl' in the "Kick-Ass" movies, goes back to her action roots, for the new horror feature "Shadow in the Cloud", directed by Roseanne Liang, from a screenplay by Liang and Max Landis, starring Moretz as 'Flight Officer Maude Garrett', with Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Bryon Coll, Joe Witkowski and Nick Robinson:

".... a female 'WWII' pilot (Moretz), traveling with top secret documents on a 'B-17 Flying Fortress'...

"...encounters an evil presence on board the flight..." 

Click the images to enlarge... ...

Shadow in the Cloud Trailer — Roseanne Liang‘s Shadow in the Cloud (2020) movie trailer has been released by Vertical Entertainment and stars Chloe Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Joe Witkowski, and Benedict Wall. Crew Liang and Max Landis wrote the screenplay for Shadow in the Cloud. Mahuia [...]

Continue reading: Shadow In The Cloud (2020) Movie Trailer: Chloe Grace Moretz joins a B-17 Bomber Crew on a Secret Mission during WW II...

"Shadow in the Cloud" is the new action horror feature, directed by Roseanne Liang, from a screenplay by Liang and Max Landis, starring Chloë Grace Moretz ("Kick-Ass") as 'Flight Officer Maude Garrett', with Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Bryon Coll, Joe Witkowski and Nick Robinson:

".... a female 'WWII' pilot (Moretz), traveling with top secret documents on a 'B-17 Flying Fortress', encounters an evil presence on board the flight..." 

Click the images to enlarge... ...

The most batshit crazy movie we saw last year? Filmmaker Roseanne Liang’s “Shadow In The Cloud” WWII actioner starring Chloë Grace Moretz that’s a mishmash blend of so many different and disparate movies. “Shadow In The Clouds” borrows from horror, WWII, aviation movies, action, claustrophobic thriller, and even a little bit of espionage.

Read More: ‘Shadow In The Cloud’: Roseanne Liang & Chloe Grace Moretz Talk About Their Batsh*t Crazy WWII Genre Mashup [TIFF Interview]

Co-starring Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Joe Witkowski, Byron Coll, to name a few, “Shadow In The Clouds,” is ostensibly about—at first— a WWII pilot who is put on a plane last minute with a typically misogynistic all-male crew.

Continue reading ‘Shadow In The Cloud’ Trailer: Chloë Grace Moretz Stars In A Batshit-Crazy Mid-Air WWII Gremlins Actioner at The Playlist.

"Requesting permission to fire on an enemy attacker!" Vertical Ent. has just dropped in with a full-length trailer for the awesome contained action horror film Shadow in the Cloud, a big breakout from Chinese-New Zealand filmmaker Roseanne Liang. We're big fans of this badass little film and hope viewers will give it a look. This fearsome WWII action-thriller is set entirely on a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. The story follows a female WWII pilot traveling with top secret documents who catches a flight with an all-male crew, but soon discovers there's some creepy gremlin creature crawling around the plane. It takes place almost entirely on that plane, and it's awesome. Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Maude Garrett, along with Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Joe Witkowski, and Byron Coll. I saw this during TIFF and raved about it in my review. Although this trailer...

"Gremlins are all in your head! It's not critters who cause accidents, it's careless airmen." Vertical Ent. has revealed the first 60-second teaser trailer for awesome thriller Shadow in the Cloud, the epic breakout contained action film that first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this fall. This fearsome WWII action-thriller is set entirely on a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. The story follows a female WWII pilot traveling with top secret documents who catches a flight with an all-male crew, but soon discovers there's some creepy gremlin creature crawling around the plane. It takes place almost entirely on that plane, and it's awesome. Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Maude Garrett, along with Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Joe Witkowski, and Byron Coll. I saw this during TIFF and raved about it in my review, saying "as ridiculous as it is at times, I just had a blast watching this.

New work from Idris Elba, Halle Berry, Mark Wahlberg, Vanessa Kirby.

It is a slimline Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year but there are still plenty of acquisition titles on offer for distributors looking to fill 2021 and 2022 slots.

Here we take a look at some of the available films that are likely to be among the more sought after prospects.

TIFF runs from September 10-19 and opens on Thursday with David Byrne’s American Utopia directed by Spike Lee. Click here for Screen’s report on the line-up, and here for the TIFF Industry Selects roster.

Good Joe Bell...

For first-time writer-director James Raue, regular trips to therapy growing up constituted a form of torture.

"I used to hate psychologists as a child. I always use to visit them because my mum was obsessed with Dr. Phil, so if there were any issues in the family we'd all go and see a psychologist. It always felt as though they were too distant and too clinical"..

"Now my girlfriend is a psychologist and my best friend is a psychologist. I ended up seeing things from their point of view - the weight of all these clients they were carrying around all the time, and the dark sense of humour they had to develop. They had to be able to joke about suicide and mental illness because it was the only way to survive"..

Making films since high school, Raue came up with "this idea of a psychologist who lost five...

The Pretend One shoot in rural Queensland

.

Cinematographer, Robert Morton, has given an inside look into the making of new Australian feature film, The Pretend One.

The film, which is due for release in 2016, was shot on a cotton farm in rural Queensland with Sony Pxw-FS7 cameras.

It was directed and produced by Tony Prescott and stars Geraldine Hakewill, Michael Whalley, Benedict Wall and David Field.

Director of photographry, Morton, has worked on The Great Gatsby in the camera department; as cinematographer on documentaries How to Fall in Love With a Stranger, Legacy: A Ride to Congquer Motor NeuroneDisease and TV movie Clean and Jerk.

Morton said the shooting schedule was ambitious.

"Given the limited amount of shoot days for the production phase, we employed a two-camera setup for a lot of scenes," he said..

"This allowed us to get the coverage we needed quickly. Primarily, we wanted a camera...