Estonian director Oskar Lehemaa is ready to give “Birth” to his first English-language body horror.
Presented at Frontières Co-Production Market, it follows a couple that, after years of failed attempts to conceive, decides to attend a secluded fertility retreat deep in the woods – as a last resort before IVF. But as the retreat’s ancient folk rituals take a sinister turn, Carl and Emma’s discover they have become part of a sacrificial rite.
“The setting for ‘Birth’ came about very organically. It simply made sense to tell a story about pregnancy in an environment literally teeming with life: the Estonian forest,” Lehemaa told Variety.
“If you lie on the forest floor in Estonia in spring, you can practically feel life pulsating through the ground and in every fresh leaf and branch. Nature also opens the door to folk horror, a subgenre particularly well suited to be-careful-what-you-wish-for stories about relationships, family, and ancestry.”
The film is produced by Stellar Film, run by Evelin Penttilä and Johanna Maria Tamm, with Tallifornia Film Fund recently coming on board, too.
