Festivals - Sundance Film Festival 2021 : John and the hole directed by Pascual Sisto will have its world premiere

By Mulder, 30 december 2020

While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) discovers an unfinished bunker—a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and older sister (Taissa Farmiga) and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants.

In his directorial debut, visual artist Pascual Sisto mines this alarming pulp premise for an enigmatic and unsettling meditation on adolescent angst. Adapted by screenwriter Nicolás Giacobone from his own short story, John and the Hole is both a harrowing psychological thriller and a potent coming-of-age fable exploring the difficult passage from childhood freedom to adult responsibility. Through precise, shallow-focus compositions, immersive sound design, and a suspended sense of time, Sisto conveys John’s uncanny experience of “playing house.” Shotwell’s chilling performance suggests an innocent yearning beneath John’s cold, blank exterior, while Hall, Ehle, and Farmiga are exceptional as his beleaguered family.

Synopsis :
A coming of age psychological thriller that plays out the unsettling reality of a kid who holds his family captive in a hole in the ground.

John and the hole (USA)
Directed by Pascual Sisto
Produced by Elika Portnoy, Alex Orlovsky, Mike Bowes
Executive Producers : Nicolás Giacobone, Pascual Sisto, Ross Jacobson, Jennifer P. Dana, Tony Pachella, Mark Roberts, Phil Hoelting, Marco Vicini
Co-Executive Producer : Fernando Tsai
Written by Nicolás Giacobone
Starring Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, Taissa Farmiga
Music by Caterina Barbieri
Sound Designer : Nicolas Becker
Cinematography : Paul Özgür
Production Designer : Jacqueline Abrahams
Costume Designer : Alex Bovaird
Edited by Sara Shaw
Distributed by Mutressa Movies
Release date : January 30, 2021 (Sundance)
Running time : 98 minutes

Premiere : jan. 30 - 12:00am // Second screening : jan. 31 - 4:00pm (local time)

(Source : press release)