We here at FilmBuffOnline have been pretty high on The Party’s Just Beginning, the feature directorial debut from actress Karen Gillan. I wrote a very positive review for it after seeing it at the Tribeca Film festival last spring and myself and contributing editor Natasha Bogutzki agreed it was one of the best films of the festival on the Tribeca wrap-up episode of The Big Picture Podcast. (And don’t be surprised if it shows up in our year-end “Best of” coverage.) We’ve been excited for others to see it and now, as its festival run has ended, distributors The Orchard are gearing up for its theatrical and VOD release next month by dropping the film’s first trailer.
Set in her hometown of Inverness, Scotland, Gillan told us back on April that it was the unusually high rate of suicide in her hometown of Inverness, Scotland that inspired the film’s story of a young woman who is still having trouble getting over the death of a friend who killed himself nearly a year previously.
It’s not something I’ve personally dealt with. But it’s a story I really felt compelled to tell because the more I started reading into the statistics in the Highlands of Scotland, the more I felt that this was an issue that needed to be talked about.
The film has not been released yet in Scotland, but when we talked to her at last month’s screening of the film at the Philadelphia Film Festival, where we predominantly talked about her next project Axe Wounds, Gillan stated,
It has played in the area yet, but it’s about to so I’m intrigued to see what will happen in the next few weeks. But the suicide help groups are aware of the movie and have a bit of an influx of calls. I think people are inquiring about the subject which I think is great to start that conversation.
In addition, Orchard has released their first poster for The Party’s Just Beginning, below, which honestly, is a bit underwhelming.
The Party’s Just Beginning goes into limited release on December 7 and hits Video On Demand on December 11.
