'Birds of Paradise' First Look Images Reveal Amazon's Elite Ballet Drama
Amazon Studios just released their first look images of Birds of Paradise, an upcoming drama film about two dancers at an elite ballet academy. Picturesque, sensual and captivating, the images promise what has come to be expected from ballet films — melodrama, identity and sexuality questions and intrigue, all wrapped up in a coming-of-age story. Birds of Paradise was written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith, the filmmaker behind the surreal cult film Buster’s Mal Heart with Rami Malek.
She adapts Birds of Paradise from the YA novel Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small. Both works follow 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 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, 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.
