New York, NY – April 18, 2012 – IFC Midnight announced today that the company is acquiring North American rights, as well as several international territories, for directors Dale Fabrigar and Everette Wallin’s sci–fi thriller AREA 407. Formerly titled TAPE 407, the “found footage” film was written by Fabrigar, Wallin, and Robert Shepyer and stars Abigail Schrader, Samantha Lester, and James Lyons. The project was produced by Suzanne DeLaurentiis and Ivan Kavalsky.
AREA 407 features lost footage too real for reality and too disturbing for fiction. The film opens with two teenagers flying from New York to Los Angeles on New Years Eve. Their nightmare begins when their plane hits extreme turbulence mid–flight. The relentless weather attack causes panic and terror amongst the passengers until the plane ultimately crashes in a remote government–testing area. The handful of survivors from the crash, bloody and disoriented, are then insistently pursued in the darkness by unknown predators that, unbeknownst to them, are part of the government’s top–secret Mesa Experiment.
Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films, commented: "AREA 407 is a rollercoaster ride of thrills that we think is the perfect IFC Midnight film. Dale Fabrigar and Everette Wallin have a lot of fun with genre conventions and deliver a film that is both a lot of fun and also quite scary. We look forward to working with them on this film."
Noted Fabrigar and Wallin: “Both of us were really excited about bringing something new to the found footage arena. Airplanes and monsters were just the beginning of the story for us, so to have IFC come in and be a part of it only makes the journey all the more worth while.”
The deal for the film was negotiated by Jeff Deutchman, Director of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films with Pascal Borno of Conquistador Entertainment on behalf of the filmmakers.
IFC Midnight is a sister division to IFC Films and Sundance Selects, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc.
About IFC MIDNIGHT
Established in 2010 and based in New York City, IFC Midnight is a leading U.S. distributor of genre entertainment including horror, science–fiction, thrillers, erotic art house, action and more. Its unique distribution model makes independent genre films available to a national audience by releasing them in theaters as well as on cable’s Video On Demand (VOD) platform, reaching nearly 50 million homes. Some of the company’s successes have included Tom Six’s controversial horror film The Human Centipede (First Sequence), Johnnie To’s Hong Kong revenge thriller Vengeance, and James Gunn’s Super starring Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page and Kevin Bacon. Upcoming IFC Midnight releases includeAlexandre Courtes The Incident and Adrian and Romero Garcia Bogliano’s Penumbra. IFC Midnight is a sister division to Sundance Selects and IFC Films, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc.