Melbourne-based prosthetics and production design whiz Justin Dix has had his debut feature as a writer/director, Crawlspace, picked up by Gary Hamilton’s sales agency Arclight Films.
Arclight got in contact immediately after the credits rolled at a screening of the science fiction action thriller in Los Angeles three weeks ago, and will premiere it at Cannes under the Darlight banner.
The deal does not include North American rights, which are held by LA-based XYZ Films.
Crawlspace is about a group of elite soldiers who infiltrate a top-secret underground military compound, only to discover that the facility is a testing ground for something far more sinister.
The cast includes Ditch Davey, Amber Clayton, Peta Sergeant, Nicholas Bell, John Brumpton and Leslie Simpson.
Although set under the Australian desert, it was entirely filmed at Docklands Studios Melbourne with private financing.
“I’ve worked on a lot of low-budget Australian films, including 100 Bloody Acres and The Loved Ones, and took what I learned from them,” Dix told IF Magazine. “They say its easier to shoot a film in one room and I had one room but it was a very big room and we built 16 amazing sets in there.”
Dix wrote the film with Eddie Baroo and Adam Patrick Foster and produced it alongside John Finemore and Nicholas Sherry. Greg McLean, James Hoppe and Craig McMahon are the executive producers.
During the recent LA trip Dix also secured an agent and pitched his next film, Declassified, which is also “claustrophobic, military and spooky”.