DNFF: A DESERT

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

A photographer on a solo road trip is befriended by a manipulative couple, and subsequently plunged into a helter-skelter nightmare.

Ostensibly a neo-noir split in two-halves – an ominous road movie that mutates into an enigmatic horror film – it crackles with stylistic assurance, a hypnotic debut embedded deep in the dark, lost heart of America. Zachary Ray Sherman shines as the reckless, psychotic Renny, while the film simmers in a paranoid, existential fever, brooding on perversion, nihilism, art and ruin. Stunningly shot, A DESERT swerves off the Antonioni highway and down the Lynchian off-ramp, refusing to play by the rules, then stares hard, Nietzsche-like, into the meta-void.

Winner – New Visions Award, Best Motion Picture, Sitges Film Festival 2024
0Winner – FrightFest Best Film, The Total Film 2024

“The scariest movie I’ve seen all year” – Screen Rant

“A UFO that comes out of nowhere heralding Erkman’s mysterious, miraculous arrival in the movie-making landscape” – Projected Figures

Preceded by
HUSH LITTLE MOUSE
(Dir: Annabelle Snelling/New Zealand/17m) Home alone, a courageous woman, driven by revenge, fends off a menacing, masked intruder.  Australian Premiere.

Rating

Unclassified 15+

Duration

103 min

Language

English

Director

Joshua Erkman