Freestyle Releasing acquires the rights of the film.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Freestyle Releasing — an independent film studio best known for films such as ‘Green Street Hooligans,’ ‘The Illusionist,’ and most recently, ‘God’s Not Dead’ — has acquired the rights to a new mystery thriller starring Kal Penn of ‘Harold and Kumar’ and ‘House’ fame, George Henley of ‘The Chronicles of Narnia,’ Laura Fraser from ‘Breaking Bad,’ and Kara Kayward, who featured in ‘Moonrise Kingdom.’
The movie, titled ‘The Sisterhood of the Night,’ is slated to provide a modern take on the Salem witch trials, which saw 20 individuals tried and executed as practitioners of witchcraft in 1692.
The film revolves around a group of girls who form the Sisterhood of the Night, a secret society that nocturnally meets in the woods. When one girl levels an accusation against the Sisterhood, the whole town is inevitably engulfed in a firestorm of persecution and tumult.
‘The Sisterhood of the Night’ will see Caryn Waechter take her first directorial bow as well as Marilyn Fu’s writing debut. In 2007 the Tribeca Film Festival bestowed a screenplay award upon Fu for the script, which is adaptation of a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Steven Millhauser.
Cine Mosaic’s Lydia Dean Pilcher (‘The Namesake’) and Evenstar’s Elizabeth Cuthrell (‘Meek’s Cutoff’) produced, with David Urrutia, Steven Tuttleman and GatalaFilm’s Taha Altayli executive producing.
The filmmakers initially plotted to realize their project by raising over $135,000 through a Kickstarter campaign in 2012. Finally, three years later, Freestyle is setting a theatrical release date for later this year.
“The Sisterhood of Night is a bold independent film that we are excited to distribute. The story spotlights today’s social media culture that plays on gossip and some of the unwanted consequences it can cause,” Freestyle president Mark Borde said in a statement.