Hollywood Siblings Anjelica and Danny Huston Team for ‘The Christmas Witch Trial of La Befana’

It’s shaping as much as be a Huston household Christmas.

Siblings and Hollywood royalty Anjelica and Danny Huston are teaming on a brand new challenge, The Christmas Witch Trial of La Befana, a hybrid animated and live-action characteristic movie that’s at the moment taking pictures in Los Angeles and Ontario, Canada.

HighballTV confirmed the main points of the movie, which was written by David James Brock and HighballTV’s Melissa D’Agostino based mostly on an concept they conceived with Matt Campagna who can be directing with D’Agostino, a frequent artistic companion. Johnathan Sharp is producing.

The plot follows a peculiar courtroom case that unspools after the kids in a rural Italian village kidnap their legendary Christmas witch, performed by Huston, and put her on trial in an try and cease her annual judgment from their lives. Whereas casting a spell by means of witches, fantasy and Italian folklore, the challenge is claimed to the touch on common themes of grief, neighborhood, love and household. Danny performs the Befano to Anjelica’s Befana.

Actors Jesse Gervasi, Maya Misaljevic, Luca Doulgeris, Mia Swaminathan, Paolo Mancini, Tarah Consoli, Juan Chioran, Phil Luzi and D’Agostino spherical out the forged. The Christmas Witch Trial of La Befana marks the primary animated characteristic for Canada-based manufacturing outfit HighballTV. Additionally of word: The movie will characteristic a soundtrack of unique songs penned by Brock, D’Agostino and Rebecca Everett.

The challenge marks a reteaming of the siblings who’ve partnered on a handful of Hollywood initiatives over time. In a promotional video acquired by The Hollywood Reporter, the Hustons reveal each why they mentioned sure to the challenge and the way they first discovered of the origins of the Befana, who has a widely known presence in Italian folklore.

“I discovered a bit bit about La Befana once I was doing The Life Aquatic in Rome with Wes Anderson. They’ve a pageant within the wintertime earlier than Christmas the place La Belfana is well known and so they have loads of puppets and La Befana is flying [with] ladies on broomsticks,” Anjelica defined. Added Danny: “I grew up in Rome as a child, so Befana was a really recognized character. She was, in a way, aggressive with Santa Claus [or] Father Christmas. Easter is a much bigger event in Italy than Christmas is, so the brooms and the hooded Befana characters are very iconic.”

Anjelica described her as “a stunning, horrible witch,” a incontrovertible fact that additionally led her to say sure. “I like enjoying witches,” she added. “In order that was type of a no brainer, and it simply appeared enjoyable, like time to do it.” She beforehand toplined Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 movie The Witches. “I like enjoying unhealthy witches,” the actress continued. “I performed Morticia Addams, who’s a favourite witch, and the grand excessive witch in The Witches for Nic Roeg, and I’ve to say…that was considered one of my favourite experiences simply because he actually inspired me to be unhealthy and there was one thing blasphemous about her.”

Danny referred to as it “a spotlight of my profession” to be starring reverse his sister on this function. They beforehand labored collectively on Mr. North, a 1988 adaptation of the Thornton Wilder novel that Danny directed and Anjelica starred in reverse Anthony Edwards, Robert Mitchum, Lauren Bacall and Harry Dean Stanton. Extra just lately, they teamed on the 2006 small display sequence Covert One: The Hades Issue reverse Stephen Dorff, Mira Sorvino and Blair Underwood. “It’s nice to get this chance once more,” Danny mentioned.

Danny is coming off a busy few months that noticed the veteran actor and filmmaker starring in The Crow, Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 and Viggo Mortensen’s The Useless Don’t Damage. He subsequent stars in The Bare Gun reboot reverse Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, and Kevin Durand. He’s repped by UTA, Untitled Leisure, UTA, regulation agency Myman, Greenspan, Fox, Rosenberg, Mobasser, Youthful & Mild and Julian Belfrage Associates in London.

Anjelica is repped by WME and Christian Hodell at Hamilton Hodell within the U.Ok. She subsequent seems on the massive display within the John Wick spin-off Ballerina reverse Ana de Armas and within the BBC and BritBox’s restricted sequence In the direction of Zero reverse Matthew Rhys, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ella Lily Hyland, and Mimi Keene based mostly on the Agatha Christie novel of the identical identify.