Director Wayne Wapeemukwa Opens Locarno Competition with Dark True-Crime Drama
Michif filmmaker Wayne Wapeemukwa will debut his second feature, Manhunt, as the opening film of the Locarno competition, exploring alienation and fascism through a fictionalized take on 2019 Canadian murders.
Wayne Wapeemukwa, the Michif director whose debut Luk’Luk’I won best Canadian feature at TIFF and a DGC Discovery Award, is set to open the 79th Locarno Film Festival competition with his sophomore feature, Manhunt. Inspired by the 2019 murders in northern British Columbia, the narrative follows two men on a road trip across the Canadian frontier, using the premise to examine loneliness, masculinity, far-right digital fantasies and the lingering impact of colonial myths.
Wapeemukwa co-wrote the script with Anna-Lena Theobald; the cast includes Harris Lowe, Landon Tunold, Bianca Foscht and Dilara Foscht, with Jonathan Glendon as director of photography and Coline Debray editing. Production partners Nathan Drillot and Matt Drake produced, while Vaka Street Casting supplied casting services. Cinetic Media secured North American sales rights and Aspect Ratio oversees worldwide sales. Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro highlighted the film’s challenge to the colonial frontier narrative.
Why it matters
The film uses a true-crime framework to confront rising fascist and alienation trends in contemporary society.
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