Where have you been the past few months Quandary Productions? Good question! After a brief hiatus, we can reveal we are back to hitting the ground running again. From a practical perspective it was near-impossible to keep you updated over the past few months as our site was badly hacked. Luckily we have Paul Johnson to hand, ready to rub his magic over the problem. But added to that we had also reached a level of exhaustion, after the first attempts at beginning pre-production on our next feature film ‘ANHEDONIA‘ earlier this year, hitting too many obstacles, and once the #CinemaRevival schedule was complete, we were forced to do some soul-searching regarding the direction of Quandary Productions as a whole, the films we want to make, and what our long-term goals are.
As you may recall our next film was to be ‘ANHEDONIA‘ in which Kino Warren walks across the country to his mentor’s deathbed with several people in pursuit. Unfortunately as we hit too many roadblocks on the way to making it this year it was postponed, possibly indefinitely. In the interim, to take my mind of the overwhelming disappointment that I wouldn’t get to make a film this year, I started work on a couple of other feature scripts, to be rewritten next year and shot in the years to come, but I couldn’t get ‘ANHEDONIA‘ out of my head. As such I returned to the script recently and gave it a radical change. It is now vastly different to the first few drafts and the metaphysical elements are now a more integral part, meaning our protagonist will be travelling not just across the country, but through different places, not of this world. I cut a couple of characters and removed huge portions of dialogue, and the project now seems more feasible – even if it is more experimental and complex.
SYNOPSIS: Forever torn between apathy and empathy, haggard musician Kino Warren, upon hearing of his mentor’s impending death, begins a journey on foot across country and through a place not of this world , known only as “the territory”. Kino believes wholeheartedly that the mentor cannot die until he arrives. On his journey, Kino is unaware several people are on his tail – varyingly malicious and politically involved – in search of the only-known recording of the greatest piece of music ever made, supposedly capable of taking away all pain within the listener – created by his mentor, and in his possession, completely unbeknownst to him. ‘ANHEDONIA’ will be a metaphysical thriller about Art’s ability to reduce suffering.
So what now? Well we plan to begin shooting next year, with the end of the 2018 in mind as a release date. Aside from having a year out as we have (first year not making a feature film since 2009, can you believe it?!) we are also doing several other things differently with this film also – we plan to crowdfund once the film is complete, instead of before the shoot. To clarify, I will be self-financing the production, and once we have a final cut of the film we will crowdfund to promote the film, give people access to the feature, and accumulate a budget to spend on getting the film out there on a larger scale; not just at festivals.
In short, we are all excited for the changes ahead, to see what comes of this major passion project that will not die, and to keep on doing what we love. Expect many more updates to come!
