WENT UP THE HILL

Opening in selected cinemas in Sydney and Melbourne on August 28.
Abandoned as a child, Jack travels to remote New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother Elizabeth. There he meets her widow, Jill, who has questions of her own. Over the nights that follow, Elizabeth returns and possesses Jack and Jill, using each of their bodies to speak to the other. Jill faces Elizabeth’s suicide, while Jack confronts his abandonment. As they learn she is trapped in limbo, Jack begins to doubt Elizabeth’s reason for returning. Caught in a life-threatening nocturnal dance, Jack and Jill must find a way to let go of Elizabeth’s hold before she pushes them to the edge.

WENT UP THE HILL was developed by Sydney-based Van Grinsven with his long-time writing partner Australian Jory Anast under the Causeway Films banner, with principal production investment from the New Zealand Film Commission and Screen Australia.

Filmed on location in New Zealand’s South Island, WENT UP THE HILL was shot at Flockhill Lodge in Lake Pearson and is deeply influenced by the landscape’s emotional and physical isolation.

“WENT UP THE HILL is an intimate ghost story that dances in the tension between genres to explore the extremities of grief in our pursuit of letting go,” says Samuel Van Grinsven. “It was inspired by nostalgic memories of my childhood in New Zealand’s remote South Island.”

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