Oscar-nominated actress Lily Gladstone will reteam with director Morissa Maltz for the film “Jazzy.” The film is a companion piece to the duo’s previous film, the 2022 film “The Unknown Country” which secured Gladstone a Gotham Award for her performance.
In that film, Gladstone played a grieving young woman who goes on a road trip to the Texas/Mexico border. “Jazzy,” shot over six years, follows the title character (Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux) and her friends as she navigates childhood and adulthood while dealing with loss and independence. Gladstone will be in a supporting role.
“One of the greatest gifts of making ‘The Unknown Country’ with Morrisa Maltz was meeting the Bearkiller-Shangreaux family, and witnessing the unbridled, exuberant creative energy that Jasmine brings into every corner of her young life,” said Lily Gladstone. “Her gregarious confidence lent itself to the effortless story construction and improvisation that made the scenes work, and made all of us, who were relatively strangers, feel like immediate family. I am so grateful to be part of Jasmine’s evolving story, to witness her creative match in her bestie Syriah, and to see our film-made family expand and deepen with the fantastic and inimitable ‘Jazzy.’”
Duplass Brothers Productions will be executive producers on the project alongside Gladstone. The Film Arcade and Fit Via Vi also produced the film. Maltz will act as director, writer and producer alongside fellow producer Lainey Bearkiller Shangreaux. Much of the same crew will return for this film as well including producer, editor and writer Vanara Taing, DP Andrew Hajek, producer Miranda Bailey and Natalie Whalen, as well as co-producer Katherine Harper and composers Alexis Marsh and Neil Halstead.
“After Morrisa and Miranda met at Bend Film Festival it sparked a fantastic collaboration on ‘The Unknown Country’ and we are thrilled to be bringing her follow-up feature ‘Jazzy’ to life,” said Miranda Bailey and Natalie Whalen of The Film Arcade in a statement. “We are delighted to have Duplass Brothers Productions and Lily Gladstone coming on board this special film.”
“We were already fans of ‘The Unknown Country,’ but seeing what Morrisa was doing with ‘Jazzy’ felt uniquely beautiful and important in its own right,” added Mel Eslyn, President of Duplass Brothers Productions. “Add Lily on top of that who we’ve worked with and love… it was an easy yes for us to come aboard.”
Gladstone is on a roll in the wake of her Oscar-nomination for her role in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Her indie film, “Fancy Dance,” most recently landed at Apple Original Films.
Shooting on the film has already taken place, wrapping in August 2023 and the film is currently in post production.
Deadline initially reported the news.
