25-03-2025
Samuel Goldwyn Films Takes Horror Movie ‘The Moogai' From ‘Talk To Me' & ‘The Babadook' Producers
EXCLUSIVE: Samuel Goldwyn Films has taken North American to the Sundance Film Festival 2024 premiere, The Moogai from Bankside Films. A May theatrical release is in the works.
The Australian horror movie comes from Causeway Films which produced such genre hits as The Babadook and Talk to Me.
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In the movie, Sarah and Fergus, a hopeful young Aboriginal couple, give birth to their second baby. But what should be a joyous time of their lives becomes sinister when Sarah starts seeing a malevolent spirit, she is convinced is trying to take her baby. Fergus, who can't see it but desperately wants to believe her, grows increasingly worried as she becomes more unbalanced. Is the child-stealing spirit real or is she in fact the biggest threat to the safety of their family?
Written and directed by Jon Bell, The Moogai stars Shari Sebbens, Meyne Wyatt, Tessa Rose, Bella Heathcote and Toby Leonard Moore. Kristina Ceyton, Samantha Jennings, Mitchell Stanley serve as producers.
The Moogai went on to play at South by Southwest and the Sydney Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Australian Feature.
The deal was negotiated by Miles Fineburg from Samuel Goldwyn Films and Yana Georgieva of Bankside Films.
At our Sundance studio in an interview with Matt Grobar, Sebbens said on her draw to reteam with Bell following their work together on series The Gods of Wheat Street, 'The script, for me personally, the reason I'm drawn to it is Jon's writing genre. Indigenous people in Australia getting to dip their toe into the genre pool for the first time was really exciting, and of course, the allegory, the messaging, and the underlying story that addresses our shameful and tragic history in Australia, which is the Stolen Generations.'
Sebbens added on the future of Aboriginal storytelling, '''Genre, that's where it's at, at the moment. That's where the exciting stuff's happening. I think the future, though, is letting us stuff up more than once. Historically, we're only allowed to make one grand entrance, and if we get it wrong, we don't get another chance. So, I think that for me, the exciting version of the future is where Aboriginal people get to be a bit mediocre as well, actually, instead of always striving for excellence.'
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