BLUNT STUFF

Most families have secrets.  Some families have lies. And some families have blood on their hands.

​In amongst the wind-swept desolate marshes and dense forest sits ITHACA cloaked in mist post rainfall, a storm is coming. Once a palatial estate turned children’s home, now a high-end hotel, much like its former owners, ITHACA rots from the inside out. Though its exterior is luxurious, its rooms well appointed, and the restaurant’s menu composed of delicious, hand-foraged, wild produce, the twisted secrets of The Ithaca’s past form an indelible stain that cannot be exorcised.

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Into this eerie world steps Leda, a ghost-writer tasked with penning the memoirs of the estate’s previous owner: Jove Livingston who has passed away.  A memorial event to celebrate Jove’s life is being held, an event that will be celebrated by a lavish dinner. Leda will discover the deep and terrible secrets of ITHACA. A story of depravity and revenge, ITHACA will have a rich and atmospheric visual style with an almost fetishistic detail around the food, nature and wardrobe.

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Referencing in style films such as Gaspar Noe’s “Climax”, Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” the Quay Brothers “Institute Benjamenta” and Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover”.  In terms of narrative the film would capture the slow unnerving reveal of terrifying family secrets captured so brilliantly in Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” and in the classic atmospheric British horror films such as Jack Clayton’s “The Innocents”.  Downtown Abbey on acid.  A haunting, deeply unsettling story that turns into something ominous and disquieting until its savage and carnal climax.