'Open Water' Filmmakers Return To Sundance With 'Silent House' Remake

The Sundance Institute announced today that Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, the filmmakers behind the 2004 Sundance sensation Open Water, will return to the Sundance Film Festival with their next feature film — Silent House will have its world premiere in the out-of-competition Park City at Midnight section. The movie, directed by Kentis and Lau based on a screenplay by Lau, is described as "A hauntingly choreographed descent into madness based on the Uruguayan film La Casa Muda." This "enthralling psychological thriller" is "impressively captured with a continuous camera shot."

You might recall that I wrote about a film at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, Gustavo Hernández's "The Slient House" which was a haunted house horror film which took place all within one 79-minute continous shot (read my review here). This movie is an American remake of that film (note: the iamge above is from the original movie). Read the full press release after the jump.

2011 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ADDS SILENT HOUSE TO LINE UPFilmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau Return to Festival with Psychological Thriller

PARK CITY, UT — Sundance Institute announced today that filmmakers Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (Open Water) will return to the Sundance Film Festival with their latest feature, Silent House, which will have its world premiere in the out-of-competition Park City at Midnight section.

The Sundance Film Festival runs January 20-30, 2011 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at www.sundance.org/festival.

Following Open Water, which screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, filmmaking duo Chris Kentis and Laura Lau once again confront the face of fear in this enthralling psychological thriller. Impressively captured with a continuous camera shot, Silent House tracks the growing panic of its enigmatic lead, Elizabeth Olsen, who's trapped in an unnerving nightmare. Never ones to be limited by a challenging production, Kentis and Lau mastermind a truly unique horror experience with immediate intimacy and unsettling terror.

With the addition of this film, the Festival will present 118 feature-length films, representing 29 countries by 40 first-time filmmakers, including 25 in competition. These films were selected from 3,812 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,943 U.S. and 1,869 international feature-length films. 95 films at the Festival will be world premieres.

Silent House / U.S.A. (Directors: Chris Kentis & Laura Lau; Screenwriter: Laura Lau) — A hauntingly choreographed descent into madness based on the Uruguayan film La Casa Muda. Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross, Haley Murphy, Adam Barnett. World Premiere

Festival Sponsors

The 2011 Sundance Film Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors—Entertainment Weekly, HP, Acura, Sundance Channel and Chase Sapphire; Leadership Sponsors—Bing™, Canon, DIRECTV, Honda, Southwest Airlines and YouTube™; Sustaining Sponsors—FilterForGood®, a partnership between Brita® and Nalgene®, L'Oréal Paris, Stella Artois®, Timberland, and Trident Vitality™. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations will defray costs associated with the 10-day Festival and the nonprofit Sundance Institute's year-round programs for independent film and theatre artists. In return, sponsorship of the preeminent Festival provides these organizations with global exposure, a platform for brand impressions and unique access to Festival attendees.

About Sundance Film Festival

Supported by the nonprofit Sundance Institute, the Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most ground-breaking films of the past two decades, including sex, lies, and videotape, Maria Full of Grace, The Cove, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious, Trouble the Water and Napoleon Dynamite and, through its New Frontier initiative, has brought the cinematic works of media artists including Isaac Julian, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Steinkamp and Matthew Barney. www.sundance.org/festival

Sundance Institute

Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. www.sundance.org

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