Making Creator Headlines · Page 6
A Finished Thriller Waits for Its Turn on the Big Screen
· New York time
Indonesian director Danial Rifki's remake of The Invisible Guest reached the big screen at Jakarta World Cinema after a delay. Rifki told Variety that the film was completed in 2023, but exclusivity clauses with HBO held up its release. The account of the contractual delay is his explanation, rather than a finding about wrongdoing by the broadcaster. The Falcon Pictures production reworks Oriol Paulo's Spanish thriller from 2016. It is also one of three Rifki films at the festival, putting a delayed project into a program with more of the director's work. Completion and exhibition are separate milestones here: finishing the film did not immediately put it before a cinema audience. For an adaptation, the route involves more than translating a story into another production. Rights and release arrangements can shape when that production reaches viewers, too. This screening gives the remake a public festival destination after the wait Rifki described. A thriller can keep its audience waiting for an answer. Its distribution arrangements have apparently been rehearsing the same technique, with the completed film waiting backstage for its own entrance.
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