Dark Sky Films will release Lola, a sci-fi drama set in 1940 England, starring Stefanie Martini (Prime Suspect 73, The Last Kingdom, Make Up, Crooked House), Emma Appleton (Everything I Know About Love, The Witcher, Pistol, Traitors) , Rory Fleck Byrne (Vampire Academy) & Aaron Monaghan (The Banshees of Inisherin, Assassin’s Creed).
In the film, Emma Appleton and Stefanie Martini are enterprising sisters who have built a machine, Lola, that can intercept radio and TV broadcasts from the future, but with World War II escalating, the sisters decide to use the machine as a weapon of intelligence, with world-altering consequences.
In his feature debut, director Andrew Legge employs a documentary-like approach to tell his story, which centers on footage discovered in old movie reel cans in a deserted house — footage that purportedly reveals the work of the eccentric sisters. Much of Lola was shot with period cameras, the footage then home-processed in a vintage16mm developing tank in order to give the movie an authentically aged feel
Release Date
Lola, premiered at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival, and opens in theaters and VOD with a release date of August 4, 2023.
Synopsis
1941, sisters Thom and Mars have built a machine, LOLA, that can intercept radio and TV broadcasts from the future.
This allows them to listen to iconic music before it has been made, place bets knowing what the outcome will be and embrace their inner punk well before the movement came into existence.
But with the Second World War escalating, the sisters decide to use the machine for good to intercept information from the future that could help with military intelligence. The machine initially proves to be a huge success, rapidly twisting the fortunes of the war against the Nazis.
While Thom becomes intoxicated by LOLA, Mars begins to realize the terrible consequences of its power.
Reviews
Rating the film a B, IndieWire review noted, “The premise is tantalizing enough to keep your imagination tickled for most of the film’s brisk 79-minute runtime: In 2021, a mystery cache of meticulously edited old celluloid was discovered in the cellar of a Sussex country house that once belonged to Martha and Thomasina Hanbury (played by Stefani Martini and Emma Appleton, respectively). It contained a first-person documentary about two beautiful and brilliant sisters who invented a machine that intercepted radio waves from the future, dubbed the device “LOLA,” and then used their towering, Oscilloscope-like device contraption to watch glimpses of the world to come.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Lola.