River Phoenix's Last Film Dark Blood to Debut at Film Festival in September
8/1/2012
by Scott Roxborough


Dutch director George Sluizer has finally finished Dark Blood, the movie actor River Phoenix was working on when he died of a heart attack in 1993 on Halloween night outside the Viper Room in Los Angeles.

Sluizer will present the film for the first time at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht in September. It will compete for the festival's Golden Calf award. The Sept. 27 premiere will be in front of a special guest audience.





THR first broke the story last year that Sluizer was finishing the film he abandoned nearly 20 years ago. The 80-year-old director secured post-production and editing financing to complete the film from the Netherlands Film Fund as well as some cash via Dutch crowdfinancing site Cinecrowd.

Dutch production house Eyeworks helped Sluizer navigate the legal issues surrounding the film. After Phoenix's death, Sluizer confiscated the Dark Blood footage and took it back to the Netherlands. He kept it hidden, fearing, he said, that it otherwise might have been destroyed.





In the film, River Phoenix plays Boy, a young widower living on a nuclear testing site in the desert. While he waits for the end of the world, Boy carves Katchina dolls that supposedly contain magical powers. His life is disrupted when a Hollywood jet-set couple travelling across the desert become stranded after their car breaks down. Boy rescues the couple and then takes them prisoner.

Dark Blood also stars Judy Davis, Jonathan Pryce and Karen Black.





Sluizer is best-known for his 1988 thriller Spoorloos, remade as The Vanishing (1993) starring Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland.

In addition to the Dark Blood premiere, the 2012 Netherlands Film Festival will also screen a retrospective of Sluizer's work and will publish a book on the director's life.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/river-phoenixs-last-film-dark-blood-finished-357228

River Phoenix's Final Film to Make U.S. Debut at Miami Film Festival
1/15/2013
by Tatiana Siegel


Nearly two decades after his death, River Phoenix's final film, Dark Blood, will screen for the first time in North America at the upcoming Miami International Film Festival.

Directed by George Sluizer and co-starring Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis, Dark Blood was 80 percent complete when Phoenix passed away in October 1993, and the footage disappeared into a vault.

In 1999 Sluizer heard that the film was going to be burned to make space, and with less than 48 hours notice, he saved Dark Blood, getting it moved to The Netherlands. The footage then sat for more than 10 years until last year when the director set about finishing the film, which premiered in the fall of 2012 at the Dutch Film Festival.





The film revolves around a jet-set Hollywood couple (Pryce and Davis) who travel through the desert on a second honeymoon, trying to save their marriage. Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere leaving them to find shelter in a man’s (Phoenix) beaten-down shack, unaware that they will become his prisoners.

Dark Blood is a film of legend, “one of Hollywood’s great mysteries,” said MIFF executive director Jaie Laplante. “The tragic loss of River Phoenix’s outstanding talent is still profoundly felt 20 years later. We are proud that George Sluizer has honored Miami as the place to finally share his remarkable collaboration with Phoenix and the other great artists involved with Dark Blood.”





This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the festival, which runs from March 1-10. Dark Blood joins previously announced titles including the U.S. premieres of Fernando Trueba’s The Artist and the Model and Carlos Lechuga’s Molasses.

Phoenix's family continues to distance itself from the film, saying in October, “Despite George Sluizer’s claim that he has been communicating with River Phoenix’s family in regard to releasing River’s last film, Joaquin Phoenix and his family have not been in communication with the director nor will they participate in any way.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/river-phoenixs-final-film-make-412650