Playtime Boards Canadian Psychological Thriller ‘White Lie’ Starring Kacey Rohl (EXCLUSIVE)
One of France’s leading sales companies, Playtime has boarded “White Lie,” a character-driven psychological thriller film from the promising new Toronto-based directors Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.
Now in post-production, “White Lie” is headlined by Kacey Rohl, who has been seen in hit TV series such as “The Killing,” “Arrow,” “Hannibal” and “Wayward Pines.” Rohl plays Katie, a university dance major who fundraises among her fellow students to pay for her cancer treatment, until her own family questions the reality of her sickness.
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Playtime came on board after screening a first cut during the Cannes Market, where the company is also selling Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” with Jean Dujardin.
“The film came as a shock. Yonah and Calvin are barely past 30 but they direct with an incredibly mature talent. They bring their characters to life in a few brushstrokes and get the audience immediately involved in the story being told,” said Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, co-founder of Playtime. Brigaud-Robert said the film marks “the birth of two directors we are impatient to follow” and added that he had the same feeling when his company picked-up Jean-Marc Vallée’s first feature “C.R.A.Z.Y.”
“White Lie” is produced by Karen Harnisch for Film Forge, the Canadian company behind “Sleeping Giant,” which played at Cannes’ Critics Week in 2015, in association with Lewis and Thomas’ Lisa Pictures and Babe Nation Films.
“Since we started producing feature films at Film Forge, Playtime’s library has always been a source of great inspiration and awe to us. We are humbled and thrilled to be collaborating with their incredible team to shepherd ‘White Lie’ into the world, and to provide a platform for the film’s immensely talented directors,” said Harnisch.
The deal was brokered by Canadian producer Karen Harnisch for Film Forge and Sébastien Beffa for Playtime.
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