{"id":613174,"date":"2026-09-03T12:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613174\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:32:08","slug":"ursula-meier-on-english-language-debut-quiet-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/613174\/","title":{"rendered":"Ursula Meier on English-Language Debut ‘Quiet Land’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSwiss French filmmaker Ursula Meier<\/a> (\u201cThe Line\u201d) is prepping her long-gestating English-language debut, \u201cQuiet Land,\u201d a detective story-cum-romantic drama set in Big Sky country that she\u2019ll be taking to the Venice Gap-Financing Market<\/a> from Sept. 4 \u2013 6.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film tells the story of respected Montana Highway Patrolman Connor McCluskey, an officer in his early seventies who, armed with his trusty analog camera, is investigating two puzzling fatal car crashes. Following a medical evaluation, he is dismissed from the force.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tConcerned that Maggy Jones, a 70-year-old woman who owns land in the same area, may suffer the same fate, Connor continues his investigation on his own. Has he uncovered an inexplicable criminal plot, or is he slowly losing his mind?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cQuiet Land\u201d is the fourth feature from the acclaimed director Meier, whose previous films include \u201cHome\u201d (2008), which premiered at Cannes\u2019 Critics\u2019 Week, and \u201cSister\u201d (2012), which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Her last film, \u201cThe Line,\u201d competed for the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlinale, where it was praised by\u00a0Variety\u2019s Peter Debruge<\/a> as a \u201cvolatile yet sensitive portrait of a woman ordered to keep her distance from her family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMeier\u2019s latest is inspired by the work of Swiss police photographer Arnold Odermatt, who over a career spanning more than 40 years documented car accidents in striking, black-and-white analog photography.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to\u00a0Variety\u00a0from her home in Geneva, Meier said she\u2019s long been \u201cfascinated and captivated\u201d by Odermatt\u2019s arresting work. \u201cThere is a great power in the photographs. And also in the landscape. It\u2019s very calm, surrounded by mountains,\u201d she said. \u201cThe space is very important, too. There is nobody [in the frame].<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt opens a lot of place for the imagination [to go]. It works like a movie,\u201d she continued. \u201cYou see the photograph, and you picture what happened before. You imagine the \u2018script\u2019 of the crash. This idea crossed my mind and stayed with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a director\u2019s statement provided to\u00a0Variety, Meier described being gripped by the idea\u00a0of\u00a0\u201cturning that former police photographer into a\u00a0fictional character, transposed onto American soil.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat if his lifelong expertise in using photographic prints to investigate car crashes led him to believe that he\u2019s uncovered a series of murders passed off as run-of-the-mill auto accidents?\u201d she wrote. \u201cCar accidents are all the same, be they in the Swiss Alps or the American Rockies. The primary difference lies in the larger-than-life scale of the American landscape, as if urging us to surpass ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking via Zoom, Meier opened up about how her long-running desire to make a movie in the U.S. got an assist from \u201cX-Files\u201d legend\u00a0Gillian Anderson<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy desire to work with actors from an English-speaking background dates back several years,\u00a0and my collaboration with Gillian Anderson and [Scottish actor] Martin\u00a0Compston on \u2018Sister\u2019 only reinforced it,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cI love what these actors bring to the table, their physical work, their approach to characters stripped of over-psychologizing,\u00a0and their wholehearted commitment to understanding and doing them justice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd\u00a0then I had this desire that, one day, I would make a film on American soil, telling an American story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe love affair deepened during the Oscar campaign for \u201cSister,\u201d which was Switzerland\u2019s official submission in what was formerly known as the best foreign-language film category, with Meier\u2019s travels in the U.S. spurring a \u201cdesire to dream big \u2014 not just in terms of landscape, but also in storytelling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s about the question of truth. What is truth?\u201d the director asked. \u201cEspecially now, I think the question is very important. This man dedicated his life to truth and justice. It\u2019s a human story. It\u2019s an investigation about [what it means to be] human.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough she initially conceived \u201cQuiet Land\u201d nearly a decade ago, Meier pressed pause on the project to begin production on her Golden Bear contender \u201cThe Line.\u201d Now she\u2019s fully thrown herself into researching her American crime story, even tagging along with the crash reconstruction unit of a highway patrol in North Dakota.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe talked about crashes, how to read skid marks,\u201d said the director, describing the experience as a \u201cgreat immersion\u201d into the unit\u2019s work. \u201cThe policeman was very nice. Very generous. It was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCasting on \u201cQuiet Land\u201d is underway, with two A-list talents already attached. Meier will reunite with long-time DoP Agn\u00e8s Godard and editor Nelly Quettier, as well as lead producer Lionel Baier of Bande \u00e0 part Films, who also shares a writing credit with the director. \u00c9milie Georges will co-produce for Paradise City Films.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the film set to go into production in fall 2027 in Alberta, Canada, and Switzerland, Meier is giddy about the prospect of painting on a broader canvas than ever before.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA police investigation, a love story and above all, a highly personal emotional journey to the self. A meditation on what remains of us when we\u2019re gone,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel free to go very deep into the love story. Maybe to shoot in this large space will give me more freedom. I don\u2019t know. In my imagination, I don\u2019t censor myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swiss French filmmaker Ursula Meier (\u201cThe Line\u201d) is prepping her long-gestating English-language debut, \u201cQuiet Land,\u201d a detective story-cum-romantic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,44607,61,60,270,259969,802,259970],"class_list":["post-613174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-gillian-anderson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-ursula-meier","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-venice-gap-financing-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}