Director William Kaufman (The Brave, Jarhead 3) had been low key releasing mini-teasers via Instagram at one point for one of his most recently-completed productions, Warhorse One, while segueing over to principal photography for military actioner, The Channel, which landed international sales at EFM earlier this year through Grandave, and Jason Patric starrer, Shrapnel with Premiere Entertainment handling worldwide sales.
Indeed, it’s been a busy year and as we make our way into another market season at Cannes, Kaufman’s reunion with actor Johnny Strong (Sinners And Saints, Daylight’s End) who co-directs and also co-wrote the pic with Kaufman, now lends us our first full trailer introducing a hearty sample of what’s to come. The trailer also introduces young actress Athena Durner who plays a girl caught in the crossfire at the tail-end of the war in Afghanistan.
While conducting a rescue mission to evacuate a group of missionaries out of a village in Afghanistan during the US military withdraw of 2021, a seal team helicopter is shot down by a group of insurgents. One of the seal team operators Master Chief Richard Mirko (Johnny Strong), is thrown from the wreckage, miraculously surviving the crash. With the rest of his team killed in action, Mirko continues his search for the missionaries, but finds their vehicle ambushed, the only survivor: a traumatized 5 year old child. Mirko must now guide the child to safety, through a gauntlet of hostile insurgents, and survive the brutal Afghan wilderness.
There’s no release date noted as of yet but that will come in the weeks and months ahead when acquisitions are finally announced at some point. In the meantime, peep the trailer, and with at least two more projects forthwith, don’t sleep on Kaufman just yet.
