IFC Buys Cracks, Debut Film From Jordan Scott

We've featured some images and the trailer for Cracks, the debut feature from Jordan Scott, daughter of some small-time director named Sir Ridley. You may have heard of him. Chances are in the next couple years you'll hear a lot more about her, and not just as the daughter of a famous guy. IFC is going to help that process along; the company has picked up Cracks for distribution in the US.

Variety reports the pickup and says IFC will release the film next year. Eva Green stars alongside Juno Temple, Imogen Poots and Maria Valverde. The story, based on the novel by Sheila Kohler's novel, is set in the 1930s. Green plays a teacher in an all-girls school, where her glamorous power over her students leads to an inappropriate relationship.

I've not had the chance to see the film, but I love the photography on display in the trailer; it hits all the right gorgeous and moody notes. I'd prefer to be given less plot, but all things considered I'll take it. Makes me more curious to see how Jordan Scott works with her actors; obviously she's got the visuals down.

When I watch the trailer for Cracks I'm reminded of Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence, another slightly odd 'boarding school for girls' movie that I caught in Toronto back in '04. That's a movie worth seeking out in its own right: it skips rigidly coherent narrative in favor of a creepily effective attempt to capture the uncertainty of adolescence. It features a turn from Marion Cotillard and some gorgeous photography from Gaspar Noé's cinematographer Benoît Debie. (Hadzihalilovic is or was Noé's girlfriend/wife/partner.) There's a semblance of mystery at the core (what are these girls being groomed to do?) that seems to resonate in Cracks, though Scott's movie appears to be more traditional from a story standpoint.

The trailer for Cracks is below, and I've embedded the Innocence trailer beneath it, because I can.