Canadian filmmaker R.T. Throne’s long-time-in-the-making dystopian thriller 40 Acres starts filming in Sudbury, Ontario.
40 Acres tells the fictional story of an ex-solider who returns to her ancestral farm, militarizes her children and prepares to live and die for what’s hers. It’s a disquieting story that touches on motherhood, race, fear, xenophobia and the legacies we leave for our children.
Like most of his work, social issues and culture perspectives such as Black womanhood in Canada, will drive this project.
The key elements for me in making [40 Acres] is to tell a story about a middle-aged Black woman and her relationship with her son. Obviously it comes from my mother being a very strong presence in my life, but also Black women in many mainstream movies do not play a central role. They don’t get that shine, especially middle age [women]. The industry is very ageist. — R.T. Thorne to now magazine in Toronto in 2018.
The indie film has signed a SAG-AFTRA Interim agreement so cameras can roll during the strikes.
R.T. Thorne made his debut on the Canadian music video scene a decade ago and has directed and produced episodic television for years, including BET & CBC’s historical drama The Porter about the first Black union.
40 Acres:
Sudbury filming dates: September 13 2023 – October 25 2023.
Writers: R.T. Thorne, Glenn Taylor.
Director: R.T. Thorne.
Cast: not yet announced.
Producers: Mongrel Media, Waterford Valley, Hungry Eyes Media.
Longer synopsis:
An exhilarating, lo-fi, dystopian thriller for our xenophobic times, that examines race, family, and legacy, through the sci-fi lens of a world without trust. A family, in a future that consists of a world struggling with a food shortage, tries to protect themselves and their family farm.
They need to fight off other people who will kill them to eat their crops and take their farm, or cannibals, who will kill them for food. Taught to fight from a young age, by their mother and father/step-father, the children of the family, three daughters and a son, have never really known any other way of life.
When a beautiful young woman shows up on the farm, the son, taken with her, hides her in the barn instead of killing her. Discovered by the mother she claims to be the niece of one of the few people the family still trusts, and tells them she believes her family has been killed. She forces the family to confront their lives of seclusion, as the son stands up to his mother for the first time, in defense of the young woman