Drafthouse Films has acquired the distribution rights to 20,000 Days On Earth, a day-in-the-life-type “documentary” about musician Nick Cave. The quotation marks are there because, while the film bills itself as a documentary – heck, it even won awards for “Best Editing” and “Best Directing” in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival – there has been no effort to hide the fact that the day of Cave’s life it covers (yes, one day, not twenty thousand) is fictional.
An Australian-born, multiple award-winning artist, Nick Cave is known for combing the sensibilities of several musical genres, including alternative rock and blues, with incredibly visceral and intimate lyrics. Cave, who invited directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard to begin filming him as he began to write his album Push the Sky Away, released last year, has also contributed to the film industry. He and music partner Warren Ellis created the soundtracks to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and The Road. Cave has also written several screenplays, including the Australian Western The Proposition, 2011’s Lawless – which he and Ellis also did the music for – and an unmade Gladiator sequel (to hear the story around that last one, take a listen to Marc Maron’s interview with Cave on his podcast, WTF with Marc Maron).
Drafthouse’s official website describes the unique project: “Fusing drama and reality by weaving the journey of a fictional day in Cave’s life, the film is an intimate portrayal of the artistic process.” The website also says that a theatrical release is “planned for 2014.”
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