It’s been seven years since Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts Of The Southern Wild” was hailed at Cannes, Sundance and the Oscars. And yet, the filmmaker has kept a fairly low profile since then, working on a mysterious movie called “Wendy.” Production on “Wendy” began in March 2017 but now, more than two years later, we are still waiting its release.
The wait may finally be over as “Wendy” is being test-screened this coming week in the West Coast. Does this mean the film has been submitted to the fall festivals? I would think so. We are likely to catch Zeitlin’s film in the coming months.
The most complete description of the plot actually comes from Zeitlin himself in 2015:
"The new film is about a young girl who gets kidnapped onto a hidden ecosystem where a tribal war is raging over a form of pollen that breaks the relationship between aging and time," Zeitlin said at the time. "It follows a friendship-love story-adventure of her and a joyous, reckless, pleasure-mongering young boy as they swirl in and out of youth and as the ecosystem around them spirals toward destruction. We’re working on it all day every day, but as all psychotic adventures go, you know where your destination is but not how long it’s going to take to get there."
It does sound like the magical realism of “Beast of the Southern Wild” will be on full display in “Wendy.”
Given the low budget, “Ebenezer” will probably amount to a win for Depp. For West, I hope this was a one-time paycheck before he goes back to R-rated filmmaking.