Neon Buys Leviticus for A$7.1m After Sundance Premiere

leviticus moved from Sundance to a Sydney screening, and Neon paid A$7.1m for the film during January’s festival run. Adrian Chiarella’s writer-director debut has now been set for an Australian release on 18 June, with Neon planning a US release the next day.

Adrian Chiarella’s Sundance sale

Chiarella wrote and directed Leviticus, which centres on two teenage boys, Naim and Ryan, as they begin a tentative romance in a Bible belt Australian town. Joe Bird plays Naim, Stacy Clausen plays Ryan, and Mia Wasikowska plays Arlene, Naim’s religious mother.

During Sundance, Neon bought the film for A$7.1m. The deal pushed the film from festival attention into a clear distribution path, with the Australian release date already set for 18 June. Neon’s US release follows the next day.

Church ceremony in Leviticus

The story turns when Naim and Ryan’s parents take them to church for a religious ceremony after learning about their relationship. That ceremony unleashes a shapeshifting bogeyman that takes the form of whoever its victim is most attracted to.

Chiarella said, “The more I explored that directly as an idea for a horror movie – like, what if it was literally about an exorcist that comes and performs this ritual? – the more it seemed to justify the belief those people had about a ‘gay demon’”. He added, “Well, what’s the opposite of that?”

Conversion control and release dates

Chiarella also said, “People say to me, oh, it’s a conversion therapy metaphor, and I’m like, not necessarily”. He added, “It can stand for anything in that space around the coercive measures different communities come up with to control young people’s lives when they’re going through this stage of their development.”

He originally conceived Arlene as a classic, malevolent horror mum, a detail that keeps the film from settling into a single reading. The film’s route now runs from Sundance to Sydney, then to Australian screens on 18 June and a US release the following day.