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Jenna Rose Sander, Estelle Girard Parks and Elise Finnerty in The Ones You Didn't Burn

A slow-burning, sensual story whose rich visual and auditory landscape imprints itself on the brain as it explores issues around family, legacy and people’s relationships to land, The Ones You Didn’t Burn was one of the more memorable offerings from the festival circuit over the past year. It marked the arrival of a new talent in Elise Finnerty, who had made shorts before but struck out in a bold new direction with this. She also stars in it, as Alice, one of a pair of farmhands (alongside her filmmaking partner Estelle Girard Parks) who may also be witches, and whose presence complicates the relationship between struggling addict Nathan (Nathan Wallace) and his estranged sister Mirra (Jenna Rose Sander) as they return to the area to decide what to do with land they have inherited from their father.

Exclusive: Occult Thriller The Ones You Didn’t Burn, which screened at the Chattanooga Film Festival, and FrightFest, has landed a series of international deals.

Jinga Films has sold the pic from Elise Finnerty to Shudder for SVOD release in the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Other reported deals include Lighthouse for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Njuta for Scandinavia, Cinema Novo for Portugal, and Encripta for Latin America. Jinga said they will “exploit all other rights in the English-speaking territories” through its distribution label Danse Macabre, with a Tvod release set for June 13.

Produced by Finnerty, Estelle Girard Parks, Nicolas Alvo, and Brett Phillips of Red Booth Productions, the pic stars Nathan Wallace as a bereaved young man who returns to his rural family home to prepare it for sale following the death of his father. There he meets two women (Finnerty and Girard Parks) who claim the...

A slow-burning meditation on land, family and betrayal, Elise Finnerty’s début feature is narratively slight but visually stunning, more of a poem than a story. It follows brother and sister Nathan (Nathan Wallace) and Mirra (Jenna Sander) as they return to the remote farm where they grew up. Their father has died – by drowning himself, it emerges – and they have come into their inheritance. Mirra would like to make something of it but is concerned about the effect it might have on Nathan, who has been sober for some time but remains precarious, always turning to her for money and unable to find any direction in life.

Even allowing for the difficulties caused by Nathan’s addiction, the relationship between these two siblings is an odd one, full of secrets and unspoken things which may have their roots in the same unhappy childhood which led to them moving away.

It is the debut feature from Elise Finnerty.

UK genre specialist Jinga Films has boarded world sales for US filmmaker Elise Finnerty’s debut feature, folk horror The Ones You Didn’t Burn, which is set to receive its UK premiere at horror and fantasy film festival Frightfest (August 25-29).

The title, which premiered at US genre festival Chattanooga Film Festival, is produced by Finnerty, Estelle Girard Parks, Nicolas Alvo and Brett Phillips of US company Red Booth Productions. Finnerty has also written the script.

The film stars Nathan Wallace and Jenna Rose Sander as siblings who, after the death of their father,...

Witches and witchcraft have been depicted in horror forever, but movies like Robert Eggers’ The Witch in 2015 and the Suspiria remake in 2018, seem to have ushered in a slew of stories about witches made into popular films over the past few years. Writer/director Elise Finnerty’s striking first feature film, The Ones You Didn’t Burn, had its World Premiere at this year’s virtual Chattanooga Film Festival and opens with the befitting Henry David Thoreau quote, “I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung.” The Ones You Didn’t Burn goes on to artfully present the story of a family seemingly cursed by the actions of those who came before them with strong performances and remarkably haunting visuals.

The Ones You Didn’t Burn follows Nathan, played by Nathan Wallace, and Mirra, played by Jenna Rose Sander,...