In an exclusive today, Deadline have revealed that DREAD (the horror specialist branch of LA-based distributor Epic Pictures and Dread Central) have acquired North American rights for upcoming Japanese horror Woman of the Photographs – as well as unveiling a creepy new trailer to boot
Woman of the Photographs is the debut feature from writer-director Takeshi Kushida, and follows ‘a solitary and skilled digital photographer (Hideki Nagai) who begins a twisted romance with a model (Itsuki Otaki) suffering from body dysmorphia and obsessed with appearing perfect in her photos.’
The twisted horror-romance tale first premiered at Japan’s Osaka Asian Film Festival back in 2020, and has since been positively received on the international festival scene winning Best Foreign Feature at Phoenix FearCon and Best Narrative Feature at the Black Hills Film Festival. Asian Movie Pulse referred to the movie as ‘one of the best of the year’, with director Kushida even being referred to as direct descendant of Cronenberg’.
In a statement, Kushida expanded on the social and cultural context behind a story that details the anxieties of our current, body image and tech-obsessed era;
Today, we live in a world where even memories can be falsified by editing photos […] For those of us who live in such an era, I made this film to find out what real happiness is. It could be seen as a romance, comedy, or horror. So I hope you enjoy it from your unique point of view.
Woman of the Photographs will released in select theaters on February 3, ahead of a VOD release from February 7. Check out the unsettling trailer below;
