Ethan Hawke’s latest directorial work, “Wildcat,” has been purchased by Oscilloscope Labs, the studio announced Wednesday. The film stars Hawke’s daughter, Maya, in the role of writer Flannery O’Connor and debuted at last year’s Telluride Film Festival.
The official synopsis says the film, “invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing?
Taking place in 1950, the film follows O’Connor as she visits her mother in Georgia while struggling with a lupus diagnosis at the age of 24. O’Connor struggles with the awareness of her own mortality while trying to assert herself as a writer.
“I can’t help but feel a strange thrill imagining the pleasure Ms. O’Connor would have at knowing that a company dedicated to championing art—Oscilloscope—is releasing a film inspired by her life and work. We have found the perfect partners and can’t wait to release this film,” Hawke said in a statement.
“It’s very exciting to me that we’ll get to bring ‘Wildcat’ to audiences. It’s an inventive and unique look at an artist that was herself inventive and unique,” said Oscilloscope’s Dan Berger. “Ethan and Shelby Gaines’s script embraces non-conventional storytelling, not being content with a typical biopic structure, instead blending fact, fiction, and everything in between, to give us a true portrait of a complicated human rendered more real as a result. The direction is deft and thrilling, and the performances are wonderful across the board, anchored by a true tour de force from Maya Hawke.”
“Wildcat” also stars Laura Linney as O’Connor’s mother Regina, Philip Ettinger, Rafael Casal, Cooper Hoffman, Steve Zahn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alessandro Nivola, Christine Dye, Willa Fitzgerald, and Levon Hawke.
Oscilloscope Labs plays to release “Wildcat” into theaters sometime this spring.
