Focus Features has picked up Of An Age, the second feature by writer/director Goran Stolevski.
The announcement comes as the distributor presents the helmer’s debut feature, You Won’t Be Alone — about a witch struggling for human connection in 19th century rural Macedonia — this weekend in limited release.
Of An Age is set in the summer of 1999 as a 17-year-old Serbian born, Australian amateur ballroom dancer experiences an unexpected and intense 24-hour romance with a friend’s older brother. It stars Elias Anton, Thom Green, and Hattie Hook.
The film wrapped production this past December in Australia with Causeway Films’ Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings producing.
International sales partners are Bankside Films; investors are Screen Australia, VicScreen, Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund, Kojo Studios and Head Gear Films.
Bankside Films and UTA negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers.
Stolevski, Ceyton and Jennings said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have our second film Of An Age with the incredible team at Focus Features.” They called the film “very different but no less unique” than You Won’t Be Alone, which first premiered at Sundance and is playing on 147 screens. It follows teenage girl Nevena (Sara Klimoska), who is turned into a witch by an evil spirit called the Wolf-Eatress (Anamaria Marinca). The “witch-mother” grows increasingly vengeful as they wander the mountainside and it’s clear her protegee prefers the company of humans. Nevena learns more about them from each body she takes over – two women and a man (Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta).
Stolveski who attended the Victorian College of the Arts in Australia, has said he took inspiration from Eastern European folk tales for You Won’t Be Alone. See the Deadline Sundance Studio interview with Stolevski and Noomi Rapace, and the film review.