New Zealand’s funniest export Jackie Van Beek ( (“Nude Tuesday,” “What We Do within the Shadows”) returns to SXSW atop the solid of “Audrey,” an Australian darkish comedy that’s headed to SXSW.

Van Beek, whose 2018 “The Breaker Upperers,” was a earlier SXSW hit, portrays a forgotten former cleaning soap star whose profession and life have been derailed by motherhood and suburban boredom. However when an accident places her 18-year-old baby in a coma, the lady takes on her daughter’s id and will get a second probability on the life she truly needed.

Different solid additionally embody: Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (“Puberty Blues,” “The Diplomat”), Josephine Blazier (“True Historical past of the Kelly Gang”) and incapacity advocate and actress Hannah Diviney (“Latecomers”).

“What begins as a light-weight, sex-fuelled comedy about household quickly takes a twisted journey into horror as, like a traditional Greek tragedy, our protagonists resolve that the one approach to discover happiness is to destroy their firstborn,” says director Natalie Bailey. She beforehand labored on “The Uncommon Suspects” for SBS and “Bay of Fires” for the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and is now making her function directing debut.

Bailey says that the movie, scripted by Lou Sanz, leans into territories explored in Gus Van Sant’s “To Die For,” PJ Hogan’s “Muriel’s Marriage ceremony” and Sam Mendes’ “American Magnificence,” with a splash of Almodovar.

“Visually, I used to be all in favour of making a journey for our household that ranges from boring and disconnected, to radiating and united, bringing them out of the shadows and into the sunshine, solely to plunge them again into a fair higher darkness,” says Bailey.

Produced by Michael Wrenn, Dan Lake, Shannon Wilson-McClinton and Diya Eid at Invisible Republic and Orange Leisure, the movie sees rights gross sales in worldwide markets dealt with by the U.Ok.’s Bankside Movies.

Audrey is an official collection of SXSW 2024 for the narrative function competitors and has its world premiere on Mar. 10. Earlier than that, watch the trailer right here: