At a time when women filmmakers are still vastly underrepresented, the dystopian Level 16 is horror/sci-fi made by women about women. But that doesn’t mean that men can’t enjoy the movie as well. In fact, it made my personal Top 10 list of genre films that screened at Fantastic Fest in 2018. What’s most terrifying about Level 16 is how potentially plausible it all seem, along with the realization this vision of the future may not be very distant.

Related Article: Top 10 Horror Movies from Fantastic Fest 2018

Today, Dread Central is pleased to present an exclusive clip from Level 16, which you can watch below. Here, we see Sophia (Celina Martin – Nickelodeon’s The Other Kingdom, CW’s iZombie) acting kind of suspiciously and then trying to talk to Vivien (Katie Douglas – Mary Kills People, Compulsion).

You can see the trailer for Level 16 embedded at the top of the article, along with the synopsis and trailer below. The film hits select theaters and VOD platforms today via Dark Sky Films and, in case it isn’t already obvious, I highly recommend it!

Synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Vivien is trapped in The Vestalis Academy, a prison-like boarding school, keeping to herself and sticking her neck out for no one. Until she is reunited with Sophia — the former friend who betrayed her. Together the girls embark on a dangerous search to uncover the horrifying truth behind their imprisonment. Soon running for their lives, the girls must save themselves or die trying.

Level 16 is written and directed by Danishka Esterhazy; read her statement below:

Like many teenage girls, Danishka Esterhazy felt alienated and disempowered during high school. “When I was a 16, I thought that my high school was trying to kill me, not literally, but I felt that the school system discouraged free thought and rewarded conformity,” she recalls. “That it was trying to forcibly shape me into something I was not.” And, like many teenagers, Esterhazy’s friendships made the high school experience bearable. “I had two best friends who stood up for me. They were my allies when I felt that no-one else understood me.”

“Our teenage years are a time of powerful emotions and great confusion. It is a time when we struggle to create our adult identities and find our place in society. It is a time of intense drama,” explains Esterhazy. “And for girls, it is also a time when the pressure to conform to repressive ideals of femininity can seem crushingly overwhelming. Sometimes, a best friend at 16 is the closest friend a woman will have in her entire life.”

Years later Esterhazy found herself in the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Program and became friends with Stéphanie Chapelle who was enrolled in the Producers’ Program. A shared area of interest was genre films, and soon Esterhazy thought up LEVEL 16 inspired by memories of her high school experience. “Considering how important these friendships are – there are very few films that have captured these relationships with realism and honesty.” LEVEL 16 is a very female-focused film. The film has a female director, two female producers, female production designer, female costume designer, and the lead roles are female. “I always had faith in the project. I knew that if we could just make the film, people would understand it and would be moved by it, and it took a long time to make that happen,” recalls Esterhazy. “So, when we finally stepped onto set for the first time it was an incredible experience. It took my breath away.”



LEVEL 16 shows the positive and redemptive sides of teen girl friendship. It celebrates the power of friendship, and in particular, the friendship between teenage girls. I wanted to honour that time in my life, that time in many women’s lives.” Chapelle saw the artistic and commercial potential of the story, and commissioned the idea to produce as an independent feature.

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