WaZabi Films, the Montreal-based sales agent launched by Anick Poirier and Lorne Price, has boarded horror comedy “Red Wings,” one of buzziest and most singular titles at early August’s Frontières Co-Production Market.
Created by executive producer Rhiannon Aarons, a publisher/co-editor on Bob Flanagan’s book “The Book of Medicine,” and Dana Hammer, author of novels such as “Rosemary’s Baby Daddy” and “Dead Viking Rehab,” “Red Wings” turns on Audrina, who gets bitten by a bat and gains an unnatural gift: Killer red bats that fly out of her vagina when she menstruates.
Learning to accept and master her superpower, she gains control of her life and fights evil in the process. Audrina starts the film being stalked by her ex-boyfriend. She now embraces her new bat-friends and sets out for retribution.
Kate Kroll (“Take Me Home,” “Happily Ever Evil”) will direct “Red Wings,” which is produced by Anne-Marie Gélinas at EMAfilms.
Aarons, Kroll, and Shaked Berenson (“Slaxx,” “Extra Ordinary”) executive produce.
Described by its makers as “bloody funny and helping to fight menstrual stigma,” “Red Wings’” screenplay, which is written by Hammer, has swept a slew of awards. These take in best outré horror script at the 2019 Hollywood Horror Fest, best feature script at the Vancouver Badass Film Festival and best feature script plus best of the fest at 2019’s Boobs and Blood.
“Red Wings” was selected for Frontières’ Our Dark Side section, an incubator organized by Women in Film and Television Vancouver for Canadian female writer-directors.
“On the surface, ‘Red Wings’ will please its fans as an awesome comedy-horror, but what drew me to the story are its underlying layers,” said Kroll. “It tackles the taboo subject of menstruation. Although I don’t have bats coming out of my vagina, I totally identify with the embarrassment, shame, confusion, and disgust.
But, she added: “I also love that it embraces the discovery of the power within our bodies. This is what I — and most women — experience. It is refreshing to read a script that broaches this with hilarity and zero f***s given.”
Montreal-based, EMAfilms produced 2020’s “Beans” which was selected for the Toronto Films Festival and won a Berlinale Generation KPlus Crystal Bear. Further credits include: “Slaxx,” which won best Canadian film at Fantasia, and best monster at Frightfest; the Amazon Prime and Apple TV-released “The Winter Lake,” co-produced with Tailored Film, and the 2015 Sundance premiered “Turbo Kid,” which won a SXSW Audience Award.
WaZabi Films was founded in 2019 by Poirier and Price, former top executives at eOne’s Seville International. It focuses on strong independent films with crossover potential and art house films with award pedigree from Montreal, Canada and the world. Titles it has handled to date take in the 2021 Sundance Next Audience Award winner “Ma Belle, My Beauty” and the Cannes 2020 Official Selection title “Nadia, Butterfly.”
“Red Wings” Poster
Courtesy of EMAfilms