The Witness Tree
They say that dead is dead … but is it?
Looking for a place to call home, a grieving mother unwittingly moves her two sons to the haunted house of her estranged grandmother only to discover that the only way forward is to reconcile the past.
Attached Cast:
Faith is Frances O’Connor Ethan is Callan McAuliffe
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Synopsis
FAITH habitually runs from her past. Faced with creditors and yet another eviction, the struggling single mother hits the road with her two sons – resentful teenager ETHAN and deaf 7-year-old JAMIE.
When a stolen car collides with them, Faith is lost in a coma for days, waking to discover her shattered family recuperating in hospital. Out of desperation she lands unannounced at Tempest, the decaying bayside mansion of the estranged grandmother who inexplicably cast her out as a six-year-old, almost 30 years ago. The house brings back painful memories of her banishment, and her mother’s subsequent suicide under mysterious circumstances.
It’s not long before Faith realises that she may have struck a deal with the devil. The agoraphobic, viper-tongued 90-year-old IMOGEN reigns like a demanding monarch from her creepy Edwardian bedroom. Concealing debilitating trauma-induced headaches, Faith struggles with the demands of caring for three dependents with very different needs, as well as dealing with her own splintered memories. To her horror, Faith begins to realise that her grip on sanity is slipping away, and that she is in danger of repeating the actions of her mother.
When MERELEINI, a local Pacific Islander girl, appears around the isolated house without warning, Faith develops a deep mistrust. At the same time, a sinister force begins to pervade the house. Inexplicable events fracture the logic of Faith’s everyday reality. The past begins to collide with the present when Faith finds herself repeatedly trapped in the year 1911, inhabiting the pregnant body of a South Pacific islander servant girl from the era.
Terrified of losing his mother to a psychiatric facility, Ethan pressures her to take medication, yet refuses to leave the house when Faith tries in vain to get them out. Ethan does not realise that his mother is hiding a sad secret of her own. Pushed over the edge, Faith is inevitably hospitalised, and soon discovers that everything she had experienced was a delusion caused by the trauma of the accident. Or was it?
Faith returns to the house, believing herself to be finally free of her demons. However, she is once again faced with the unseen presence hellbent on getting what it wants. This time, Faith knows that in order to find peace in her future, she must resolve the past.
Budget: A$3,000,000
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
Status: Market ready script, Developed by Screen Queensland & Chilling Pictures
The Witness Tree mood reel:
The Witness Tree pre-visualisation:
Sieze the Day by director Alex Chomicz won the critics prize at Brisbane International Film Festival and the Audience Prize at Melbourne. His other work can be found at www.alexchomicz.com.