DRUM WAVE
10:25 BLOCK 7 LOVE HURTS
Horror / Drama (Australia) 2018
Writer / Director: Natalie Erika James
US Premiere
SYNOPSIS: A young pianist is forced to confront her fear of motherhood when she marries into a remote island community with bizarre fertility rituals.
DIRECTOR BIO: Natalie Erika James is a Japanese-Australian writer, director, and producer, born in the USA and based in Melbourne, Australia. Her feature project, RELIC, produced by Carver Films (SNOWTOWN, PARTISAN) and Nine Stories (Riva Marker, Jake Gyllenaal), has received funding through the Screen Australia Gender Matters program, with further support from Film Victoria. Her
2016 short, CRESWICK, premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and has gone on to screen at 50+ festivals including the New York Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, and the Atlanta Film Festival. CRESWICK was awarded the 2017 AWGIE Award for Best Short Form screenplay by the Australian Writer’s Guild. Natalie also produced UNDER THE SUN, shot on location in Changzhou, China. UNDER THE SUN premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival in the Cinefondation program, and has gone on to screen at 50+ festivals internationally. In early 2017, Natalie was awarded a Film Victoria funded director’s attachment on Leigh Whannell’s sci-fi thriller, UPGRADE. Natalie’s next project, DRUM WAVE, is funded by the highly competitive Screen Australia Hot Shots Plus Fund for both development and a proof-of-concept short film. Natalie is signed to WME and directs commercials and music videos through Melbourne production company, Fiction (fiction.net.au). She has previously won Australian Music Video of the Year at the 2015 Triple J Awards for directing the music video MINE by artist Life is Better Blonde