Only days ago I was scrambling around the cyber universe in search of any glimmer of a release date for Jennifer Kent’s thriller The Nightingale. Of course, IFC Films purchased the US rights to the film, released earlier this year, following its impact at the Venice Film Festival last year, taking the Special Jury Prize with it.
Fear not my British peers, it was exclusively announced hours ago that Vertigo Releasing have been given the UK and Ireland rights to distribute The Nightingale – Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to her 2014 horror film, The Babadook. The Nightingale will be available to view in cinemas and on demand on 29th November 2019.
Vertigo has helped launch many an independent film into the stratoshpere, with the likes of Bronson, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and Monsters. The innovative distributors have also marketed for Babak Anvari (Under The Shadow), Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) and Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl). Vertigo understand and strategise the importance of passionate audiences, who yearn to see these remarkable independent films.
The Nightingale is set in 1825, during the colonisation of Australia. Our protagonist is the 21-year-old Irish convict, having freshly served a seven year sentence, Clare (Aisling Franciosi). This is a violent tale of trauma and revenge, as Clare heads off to kill her despicable master, British officer Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), after what he did to her family. The Nightingale also features Baykali Ganambarr as an Aborigine called Billy, who helps Clare track through the wilderness.
