EXCLUSIVE: Bangkok-based Diversion has secured world sales rights to The Remotes by Filipino auteur John Torres’ ahead of its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival.
The feature merges noir procedural with surreal offbeat romance and follows a detective with a troubled past who investigates a series of unexplained road accidents. The investigation sees him become entangled with two sisters behind a government initiative for retraining reckless drivers through a sinister voice-guided system.
It will premiere in TIFF’s Wavelengths section on Friday (September 11) before receiving its US premiere at New York Film Festival on October 2.
The cast is led by Alchris Galura, acclaimed film and theatre actor Gabby Padilla and influencer Julia Richards in her film debut.
It marks the narrive feature debut of Torres, who is a defining figure of experimental cinema and has worked for more than two decades as a filmmaker, musician and writer. He has made five feature-length experimental, non-narrative films usually built out of found and personal footage, including his 2006 debut feature Todo Todo Teros, winner of the Dragons and Tigers Award at Vancouver. His films have also played Rotterdam, the Berlinale and Lincoln Center.
Producers are Torres’ Los Otros along with Shireen Seno, director of Nervous Translation, and Sherad Anthony Sanchez, director of Imburnal. Both are major figures in Filipino arthouse cinema whose films have travelled extensively on the festival circuit.
Mai Meksawan of Diversion said: “We have known John for about 20 years and have always followed his career with admiration in his unique and uncompromising sensibility in blending deeply personal stories and discarded footage and turn them into something truly poetic and powerful.”
Torres said: “We wanted a sales agent who understands our needs not just as Southeast Asian filmmakers, but also as artists seeking to carve a path towards a sustainable practice in the middle of big international coproductions and limited and overly localised ways of making.”
Diversion’s slate as producer includes Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s The Burning Giants, which premiered last month at Venice Orizzonti.
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