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"Milly is two years old and needs some serious TLC..." Factory 25 has unveiled the official trailer for an amusing indie creation called The Heirloom, from filmmakers Grace Glowicki & Ben Petrie. It's expected to open in art house theaters early 2025. The Canadian indie film first premiered at the 2024 Rotterdam Film Festival, with stops at the Munich and Stockholm Film Festivals as well. Based in part on director Ben Petrie's own real-life relationship with actress Grace Glowicki, the film stars Petrie & Glowicki as Eric & Allie, a couple who decide to adopt a rescue dog during lockdown. Despite the challenges of adapting to the dog, Eric, a filmmaker who has been suffering from writer's block, then becomes inspired to start writing a new screenplay about a couple adopting a dog. The cast also includes Matt Johnson as a veterinarian, and Leah Doz as his veterinary technician. This looks like it fits right...

One of the highlights from International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year was Ben Petrie’s The Heirloom, a rom-com psychodrama in which he stars alongside Grace Glowicki as a couple who adopt a dog and learn what it means to become a family. Picked up by Factory 25, ahead of a Toronto screening at TIFF next week and theatrical release in 2025, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the first trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “The Heirloom follows a control freak who becomes seized by artistic inspiration when he and his girlfriend adopt a traumatized rescue dog and begin attempting to train her. A devotedly funny rom-com psychodrama, The Heirloom is a deeply intimate and personal chamber piece about a long-term couple struggling desperately to become a family.”

Rory O’Connor said in his review, “This is often very funny, even as Eric’s narrativizing threatens to further hinder the relationship.

Exclusive: Production has wrapped on under-the-radar sophomore feature Honey Bunch from writer-directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, who made their debut with TIFF, Sundance and SXSW selection Violation. XYZ is handling sales, financing and serving as exec producer.

Rising Canadian actors Grace Glowicki (Tito) and Ben Petrie (BlackBerry) star, while Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter saga), Kate Dickie (The Witch), India Brown (Invasion) and Julian Richings (Beau Is Afraid) round out the cast.

The logline reads: “When Diana (Glowicki) wakes from a coma with fragmented memories, she and her husband (Petrie) seek experimental treatments at a remote facility. As the procedures intensify, their marriage is put to the test and Diana begins to question her husband’s true motives.”

The Canadian production is a part of XYZ’s New Visions slate of films designed to spotlight new talent.

The film is written by Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli and produced by Becky Yeboah,...

Supernatural thriller Molder from Filipino director Kenneth Dagatan has won the top prize at the 17th Network of Asian Fantastic Films (Naff) project market, which runs alongside Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan).

The third title from Dagatan took home a cash prize of KRW15M for winning the Bucheon Award. The project also scooped up the Blood Window Award, which includes an expenses-paid invitation to the Blood Window project market at Ventana Sur in Argentina.

Philippines-Singapore-Italy co-production Molder is targeting a shoot date in the second half of 2025 and is looking to cast a major Italian actress.

Dagatan’s In My Mother’s Skin from 2023 premiered in the Midnight Section of the Sundance Film Festival as the only non-English language title in the section, and was later acquired by Amazon.

“Bifan has always had a place in my heart,” Dagatan told Deadline, about his special relationship with the festival.

Molder from Filipino director Kenneth Dagatan has scooped the top Bucheon Award at the 17th Network of Asian Fantastic Films (Naff) project market, which runs alongside South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan).

As well as a cash prize of KRW15m, the upcoming horror thriller also won the Blood Window Award, which includes an expenses-paid invitation to the Blood Window project market at Ventana Sur in Argentina.

Scroll down for full list of winners

It marks the next feature from Dagatan, whose fantasy horror In My Mother’s Skin was the first ever Midnight section selection from Asia...

After three days of one-on-one meetings, supernatural horror film project “Molder” emerged as the biggest winner of the Naff Project Market, part of South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

The project by Kenneth Dagatan won the top Bucheon Award and an expenses-paid invitation to the Blood Window project market in Argentina.

Other notable winners included “Naga Swim Upstream,” the next project by Thailand’s Patiparn Boontarig, who recently enjoyed festival success with “Solids by the Seashore,” and “The Vampire of Sheung Shui,” to be directed by Shreyom Ghosh.

“Molder” features a Filipino immigrant living in Italy with his wife who suffers from dementia. When they meet a mysterious young Filipino man named Anthony, the woman disappears and the immigrant man’s life turns into a nightmare of physical decay, marked by necrotic skin patches and horrifying visions. He must race against time to find Anthony, whom he believes has cursed them,...

“A squirmy treatise on sexual insecurity and relationship oneupmanship” is how I described Ben Petrie’s fifth short film Her Friend Adam when profiling the Canadian writer-director-actor for Filmmaker‘s 2016 25 New Faces list. That film starred Petrie and real-life partner Grace Glowicki as a couple whose relationship is unexpectedly destabilized when he spies a suggestive text message on her phone. He admitted at the time that the short was inspired by a “private lash of jealousy” he experienced in a similar moment with Glowicki, and our profile concluded with him working on a screenplay for this forthcoming first feature. You […]

The post “I Could See Myself So Clearly in Her Fear”: Writer/Director Ben Petrie on His Rotterdam-Premiering, Dog-Loving Relationship Comedy, The Heirloom first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“A squirmy treatise on sexual insecurity and relationship oneupmanship” is how I described Ben Petrie’s fifth short film Her Friend Adam when profiling the Canadian writer-director-actor for Filmmaker‘s 2016 25 New Faces list. That film starred Petrie and real-life partner Grace Glowicki as a couple whose relationship is unexpectedly destabilized when he spies a suggestive text message on her phone. He admitted at the time that the short was inspired by a “private lash of jealousy” he experienced in a similar moment with Glowicki, and our profile concluded with him working on a screenplay for this forthcoming first feature. You […]

The post “I Could See Myself So Clearly in Her Fear”: Writer/Director Ben Petrie on His Rotterdam-Premiering, Dog-Loving Relationship Comedy, The Heirloom first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.