Shin’ichirô Ueda’s brilliant zombie movie One Cut of the Dead has been remade as Final Cut, a French take on the material that was directed by Michel Hazanavicius. The film had been set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah later this month, but Screen Daily is reporting today that the film has been pulled from the fest by the filmmakers.
The site reports, “The team behind Michel Hazanavicius’s zombie comedy Final Cut (Comme Z) have pulled the film from Sundance in light of the festival’s move to an entirely virtual event and will stage an in-person theatrical premiere at a later date.”
“We fully support Sundance’s decision to move the festival to a virtual format, as the safety of audiences and filmmakers is of paramount importance,” a statement from the filmmakers reads. “However, we believe that it is best to premiere Final Cut in a theater with a live audience and have made the difficult decision to remove the film from this year’s festival. We wish Sundance and all the filmmakers involved an excellent festival and look forward to sharing Final Cut with audiences very soon.”
Sundance issued their own statement, also shared by Screen Daily: ”We had looked forward to screening Final Cut and due to the shift in our format they are no longer participating in the Festival. We respect the filmmaker’s wishes to share their work in a different capacity. We remain committed to supporting filmmakers as we navigate the changing landscape to ensure independent artists get the visibility they deserve and while we’re deeply disappointed to not gather as intended, the safety of our entire community must come first.”
In Final Cut, “Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.”
Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Grégory Gadebois, Finnegan Oldfield, Matilda Lutz, and Raphaël Quenard star.