Opening Nov 4, 2022 in theatres and VOD
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
Mali Elfman‘s search an afterlife gets answered in her haunting movie, Next Exit. It’s headed to select theatres and VOD after Halloween, and the timing is perhaps on purpose so that those people wanting scares can get just that in October, and more thoughtful discourses on the month following. After a successful run at Fantasia (review here), it’s been picked up by Magnet Releasing.
This filmmaker said, “My grandmother would ask me this before she passed away. She wanted to understand what would happen next. I used to tell her, ‘I don’t know what ghosts are, but I do know that there is more to life than what I know – and yes, I do believe that they are real in a way. I believe we make them real.’
“I believe they are real because our minds are powerful tools that can create what is needed. After she passed, I lit a candle for her every night HOPING that her ghost would come and visit me. I was so afraid… not of a ghost but that I would never see her again.
“I wrote this script because I was afraid. Afraid of Covid. Afraid of war and guns. Afraid of losing more loved ones. Afraid of post-truth politics and of failing on this artistic path that I’ve chosen for myself. There is so much anxiety and fear in the world we live in…
“I made this project because I needed to find hope. I kept looking for answers and realized what I had to do was trust myself. Trust the darkness that I was in. Trust that what I feared could manifest into something that could show me the way. I started writing this film nearly ten years ago, and every time a tragedy would happen and that darkness would take over again, this script would help me find my way back. Next Exit is my hopeful ghost story about the unexpected things that help us find our way through the darkness, even when we can see none.”