Trailer: Shirkers set for October Netflix release
David Farnor | On 20, Sep 2018
Sundance hit Shirkers is heading to Netflix this October, and a new trailer gives us a glimpse of what’s in store.
Directed by Sandi Tan, the film looks back at Tan’s own film that she made in 1992, called Shirkers. The cult classic was made by the filmmaker with her friends, but it was never released.
Why? Because the 16mm footage was stolen by their enigmatic American collaborator Georges Cardona. More than two decades after Cardona disappeared, Tan, now a novelist in L.A., returns to the country of her youth and to the memories of a man who both enabled and thwarted her dreams. Magically, too, she returns to the film itself, revived in a way she never could have imagined.
Also written and produced by Tan, Shirkers debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where Tan won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. The film was produced by Jessica Levin and Maya Rudolph, co-edited by Lucas Celler and Kimberley Hassett, photographed by Iris Ng, with an original score by Ishai Adar. The film premieres worldwide on Netflix on Friday 26th October. Here’s the trailer:
Netflix snaps up Sundance documentary winner Shirkers
3rd March 2018
Netflix has snapped up the rights to Sundance documentary winner Shirkers.
Directed by Sandi Tan, the film looks back at Tan’s own film that she made in 1992, called Shirkers. The cult classic was made by the filmmaker with her friends, but it was never released.
Sandi, who became the film critic at Singapore’s largest newspaper at the age of just 22, has seen her short films play at hundreds of festivals, from New York to Clermont. As a teenager, she penned a thriller about a teenage assassin, which she shot guerrilla-style with the help of a mysterious American mentor, Georges. One day, though, George disappeared with the 16mm footage. Now, the documentary sees her go on a journey into her past, and creative life, to unravel the mystery of who this man was.
The resulting movie premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Directing Award in World Cinema Documentary. While the actual Utah event was quite on the acquisition front, following two years of intense bidding by Amazon and Netflix to snap up the next big breakout indie hit, Netflix has slowly begun to buy up movies from this year’s line-up, starting with animation White Fang last week.
“I’ve always dreamed of sharing my stranger-than-fiction film Shirkers with the widest audience possible, so am thrilled for Netflix to help tell this story to new generations of iconoclastic, creative people around the world,” Tan said in a statement. “I hope the true story of my youthful misadventures will inspire people to turn their crazy dreams into reality.”
“Shirkers speaks to a part of us that rarely get expressed—that bold spirit of making your own art regardless of the challenges,” added Netflix VP of Original Documentary Programming Lisa Nishimura. “Sandi Tan has an exquisite, hypnotic story to tell, one that stretches from teenage rebellion to a kind of personal homecoming that all audiences can relate to.”