Feature film | Thriller | | 2024 | New Zealand | 99min | English | Directed by Samuel van Grinsven

This screening will take place at CINEMATEKET.

Synopsis

Abandoned as a child, Jack travels to remote New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother Elizabeth.

There he meets her widow, Jill, who has questions of her own. Over the nights that follow, Elizabeth returns and possesses Jack and Jill, using each of their bodies to speak to the other. Jill faces Elizabeth’s suicide, while Jack confronts his abandonment. As they learn she is trapped in limbo, Jack begins to doubt Elizabeth’s reason for returning. Caught in a life-threatening nocturnal dance, Jack and Jill must find a way to let go of Elizabeth’s hold before she pushes them to the edge.

WENT UP THE HILL is a psychological drama inspired by writer/director Samuel Van Grinsven’s memories of his childhood in New Zealand’s South Island. An intimate, modern ghost story that explores the extremities of grief in our pursuit of letting go.

Director’s Bio

SAMUEL VAN GRINSVEN – Writer/Director - is an Australian / New Zealand writer and director. His upcoming second feature film WENT UP THE HILL stars Vicky Krieps (PHANTOM THREAD, CORSAGE) and Dacre Montgomery (STRANGER THINGS) and is an Australian/New Zealand co-production produced by Causeway Films (TALK TO ME, OF AN AGE) and POP Film (SAVAGE). Samuel completed a Masters of Directing at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) with a research area focused on the New Queer Cinema movement of the 90s. In approaching WENT UP THE HILL, I was grappling with themes of control - the loss of it, both given and taken - and the regaining of it to shape one's future. In confronting the many faces of control, be it of the body or the mind, the film was born. A three-hander, told with two actors - a triangle of interdependent characters each seeking control via the act of giving it over entirely."