The Australian film, 52 TUESDAYS, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award, has been acquired by Kino Lorber for release in the U.S. Kino Lorber is planning a limited Spring 2014 release. 52 TUESDAYS is now playing at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival where it is screening in the Generation 14 Plus program. 

Sixteen-year-old Billie is blindsided by the news that her mother is planning to transition from female to male and that, during this time, Billie will live at her father’s house. Billie and her mother have always been extremely close, so the two make an agreement they will meet every Tuesday during their year apart. As her mother transitions and becomes less emotionally available, Billie covertly explores her own identity and sexuality with two older schoolmates, testing the limits of her own power, desire, and independence. Sundance Film Festival.

According to the filmmakers, Sophie Hyde’s directorial debut, 52 TUESDAYS, is a one of a kind film. The fascinating aspect of this intimate story is also the unique form representing the chronology of the story, as it was shot every Tuesday for 52 consecutive weeks. The filmmakers had set themselves the same rule, that they could only shoot on Tuesdays up until midnight and only consecutively, so whatever filmed on that day is what happens in the story on that day. The writers, Matthew Cormack and Sophie Hyde, created the structure first before they decided on character and story. Led by the very real performances of the collaborators playing the mother, “James” (Del Herbert-Jane) and teenage daughter “Billie” (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), the actors, all non-professional, were given the script one week at a time and only given the scenes that they were in.