Christina Hendricks has been cast in the lead on the psychological thriller Reckoner, which becomes the first package to join XYZ Films’ New Visions Cannes initiative championing bold global voices.
Nissar Modi, the writer on writer of Z For Zachariah, will make his feature directorial debut based on his screenplay about an affluent woman whose carefully constructed life is disrupted by a young man connected to a secret from her past.
The film is based on a short story by Rachel Ingalls and will be produced by XYZ Films and Two & Two Pictures, with XYZ Films financing.
Reckoner stems from the partnership between XYZ Films and Two & Two to support first- and second-time genre filmmakers. The companies have collaborated on Babak Anvari’s Under The Shadow, I Came By, and the upcoming History Of Evil from Bo Mirhosseni.
Hendricks is best known for her role as Joan Harris on Mad Men and recently starred in the series Good Girls, and has also appeared in American Woman, Drive, and Neon Demon and will next be seen in the Apple+ series The Buccaneers.
The New Visions slate includes Zarrar Kahn’s Pakistani-Canadian horror and Directors’ Fortnight selection In Flames, Barnaby Clay’s Tribeca Festival selection The Seeding, Robert Hloz’s Czech sci-fi Restore Point which screens in the Cannes market as part of the Fantastic 7 line-up, and Paul Duane’s upcoming Irish folk horror All You Need Is Death.
Two & Two also has Jean-Stephane Sauvaire’s Black Flies in official competition in Cannes, and is in post-production on Max and Sam Eggers’ The Front Room for A24.
XYZ Films’ head of international acquisitions Todd Brown said the Reckoner script was “gripping, engaging and deeply challenging”. Brown and sales executive Manon Barat are overseeing the New Visions slate.
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