Birds of Paradise follows two dancers at an elite ballet academy in Paris, where they compete for a contract to join the highly coveted Opéra national de Paris. Kate Sanders (Diana Silvers) is an ambitiously gifted dancer from Virginia, who doesn’t quite fit in due to her tomboyish nature and her low-income status. In order to attend the school, she is luckily granted a scholarship.
She quickly establishes a frenemy situation with Marine Durand (Kristine Froseth), a beautiful and mysterious dancer who is coping with the loss of her brother to suicide. Their relationship grounds the film, as they must confront their competitive nature, sexual awakenings and how far they would go to win the contract.
Diana Silvers and Kristine Froseth play Kate and Marine, with the indomitable Jacqueline Bisset starring in probably a headmistress or ballet instructor role. Silvers is a young, up-and-coming actress with memorable turns in Booksmart, Netflix’s comedy Space Force and the neverending meme generator Ma. Froseth is best known for her roles in Netflix’s The Society and Hulu’s Looking for Alaska as the titular character. Froseth was also recently cast as young Betty Ford in Showtime’s anthology series The First Lady.
Shot in Budapest and teases some classic ballet garb, the film is sure to be a treat visually and feature some stunning dance numbers. It will be interesting to see how much of their own dancing Silvers and Froseth appear to do, whereas Bisset does have at least some background in ballet. She notably played a ballet instructor before in Save the Last Dance 2, the direct-to-DVD follow-up to the teen breakout film in the early 2000s.
Birds of Paradise is an American drama film written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith, based upon the 2019 novel Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small. It stars Kristine Froseth, Diana Silvers, Jacqueline Bisset and Stav Strashko. It was released on September 24, 2021, by Amazon Studios.
In February 2020, it was announced that Sarah Adina Smith would write and direct Birds of Paradise, a drama film based upon the novel Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small. Kristine Froseth, Diana Silvers, and Jacqueline Bisset would star, and Amazon Studios would distribute. Principal photography began that same month, in Budapest, Hungary.
Birds of Paradise (2021)
Directed by: Sarah Adina Smith
Starring: Kristine Froseth, Diana Silvers, Jacqueline Bisset, Stav Strashko, Hélène Cardona, Nassim Lyes, Roger Barclay, Solomon Golding, Eva Lomby, Jeremy Wheeler, Alice Dardenne
Screenplay by: Sarah Adina Smith
Production Design by: Nora Takacs Ekberg
Cinematography by: Shaheen Seth
Film Editing by: David Barker
Set Decoration by: Pataki András
Makeup Department: Krisztina Fehér, Renáta Krisztina Kiss, Agoston Zsombor
Music by: Ellen Reid
MPAA Rating: R for drug use, sexual content, language and brief nudity.
Distributed by: Amazon Studios
Release Date: September 24, 2021
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