Swiss Director Ursula Meier Taps Gillian Anderson for English-Language Debut 'Quiet Land'
Swiss French filmmaker Ursula Meier is preparing her first English-language feature, 'Quiet Land,' a detective story and romantic drama set in Montana's Big Sky country — and she is bringing it to the Venice Gap-Financing Market this week to secure the remaining budget (Variety).
The film centres on Connor McCluskey, a Montana Highway Patrolman in his early seventies investigating two puzzling fatal car crashes. After a medical evaluation leads to his dismissal from the force, McCluskey continues the case on his own, driven by concern that Maggy Jones, a 70-year-old landowner, may be the next victim. Meier previously worked with Gillian Anderson and Martin Compston on her 2012 film 'Sister,' and Anderson is attached to the new project (Variety).
'Quiet Land' draws unexpected inspiration from the work of Arnold Odermatt, a Swiss police photographer who spent more than four decades documenting car accidents in stark black-and-white analog images. Those quiet, unsettling photographs — long admired in the art world — seed the film's tone of investigation layered over intimacy.
The Venice Gap-Financing Market, running September 4–6, is a industry event where filmmakers with projects in late-stage development pitch to investors and producers to close funding gaps. 'Quiet Land' is one of 38 films selected for this year's edition (Screen Daily). The project has already received a Suissimage grant for female directors (Bande à Part Films).
Meier's path to this point runs through Europe's top festivals. Her 2008 film 'Home' premiered at Cannes' Critics' Week. 'Sister' won the Silver Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival and was Switzerland's official submission for the Academy Awards' foreign-language category. Her most recent feature, 'The Line,' competed for the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlinale. 'Quiet Land' is her fourth.
What makes the project stand out is the collision of sensibilities: a European art-house director with a festival pedigree stretching from Cannes to Berlin, turning to American Big Sky country for her first English-language work, with a cast led by an actress best known to global television audiences. The gap-financing market in Venice will determine how quickly that combination reaches screens.
