Sundance 2015 Review - The Visit (2015)

Michael Madsen to attend European premiere of THE NINTH CLOUD at RDFF

THE NINTH CLOUD, Jane Spencer’s dark, philosophical drama, will receive its European Premiere at this year’s Raindance Film festival, on Monday 29 September (8.50pm) at the Vue Piccadilly. The film’s stars will be attending, including Michael Madsen and Leo Gregory. Director Jane Spencer and producer Julia Verdin will also be attending and all will be giving a Q+A after the screening.

Set in 90s London, THE NINTH CLOUD tells the story of Zena (Megan Maczko), who, trying to escape the grief of her family being killed in a plane crash, becomes infatuated with fellow American Bob (Michael Madsen), an enigmatic but failed poet and writer, who has taken up residency in a Hackney squat. Searching for hope through Bob’s artistic visions, whilst clinging on to her fragile grasp of reality, Zena collides and colludes with an array of desperados, angst-ridden IT girls and debauched failed artists. Two men in particular zero in on her: Brett, a narcissistic socialite (Leo Gregory), and Jonny, a drink-drowning musician searching for a way to re-surface (Jean Hughes Anglade). But it is to the unattainable Bob that Zena is mystically drawn to – as if only he holds the answer to the meaning of her life...

Jane Spencer’s tragi-comedy takes us on a journey through the underbelly of 90s London where loss, love and the meaning of existence are given a uniquely surreal twist.

She comments: “The film is about a group of people from all walks of life, trying to find hope in a world full of darkness and tragedy. Zena is a dreamer, who, against all circumstance, is trying to make something good happen in the world - even at a very high personal cost. I grew up watching films from the 1960's 'free cinema' movements and idolised the work of Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, and also the philosophical films of that time; the French films of Truffaut, and especially Jacques Rivette. I suppose THE NINTH CLOUD is a 'homage' to those films, in a way”
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Producer Julia Verdin adds: “One of the things that attracted me to this project is that it is a film about escapism. All of the character is their different ways are trying to escape from reality and living in worlds that they have created for themselves and so blocked from moving forward by their own perceptions which i think is something that audiences will identify with.

The screening will take place at The Vue Piccadilly at 8.50pm on Monday 29 September. There is a second screening, also at the Vue Piccadilly, on Tues 30 at 4pm.


Tickets can be bought from: www.myvue.com/Raindance