Yutaka Takeuchi, who appeared in Marvel’s The Defenders on Netflix, is set to appear in the new, neo-noir feature film Drive All Night, which is set to make its world premiere in competition at the Cinequest Film Festival at the end of this month. Voted Best Film Festival by readers of USA Today, Cinequest runs from March 20-30 and draws an audience of over 110,000 to its annual event with a mission statement of “celebrating innovation, discovery and creativity in the heart of Silicon Valley.” Drive All Night is the debut film from award-winning writer-director Peter Hsieh, best known for his work on the stage.
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Drive All Night follows Dave (Takeuchi), a reclusive swing-shift taxi driver, whose night takes an unexpected turn after he picks up a mysterious passenger, Cara (Lexy Hammonds), a young woman hiding a dark secret. As she makes him drive through the city on a series of bizarre excursions, things get increasingly more surreal the further into the night they go. Sarah Dumont (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, The Royals) plays Morgan, a sympathetic waitress who works at a diner that Dave often frequents, while Johnny Gilligan plays Lenny, an obsessive hitman guided by strange visions, who pursues our protagonists through the night.
“Cinequest is always searching for films that stretch the boundaries of storytelling, and visions from artists who are looking to reinvent genres,” said Michael Rabehl, programming director at Cinequest. “Drive All Night is a spectacular example of a story we have never seen before. It took us by surprise, took us on a ride, and it swept us up in one of the most unpredictable journeys.”
While Hsieh is most known for staged plays like Tangerina and Interstate, produced and workshopped at theaters across the country, Drive All Night marks his first foray into feature filmmaking. For comics fans familiar with Takeuchi’s work from The Defenders, it’s notable that “Drive All Night” was the name of an episode of another popular streaming superhero show: DC Universe’s Swamp Thing, in which nearly every episode was named after a Bruce Springsteen song.
“I wanted to develop a complex and layered narrative that became increasingly more dream-like and surreal as the story developed,” said Hsieh. “My goal is to take the audience down the rabbit hole on a fever dream trip through wonderland and hopefully have them come out the other side both baffled and entertained.”
The films Executive Producers are Christopher Au (Bulge Bracket) and Sam Chou. Chou’s game development studio, Windy Studios, was the lead producer on the companion Drive All Night mobile game. In the game, players follow Cara through a series of locations and adventures that are alluded to, but never seen in the film.
“Peter created such a rich, visually-stunning world within the film. The game allows you to enter that world and explore things we couldn’t fit into the film,” said Chou.
The free Drive All Night game is available today in the App Store for iOS and Google Play Store for Android.
Tickets for Drive All Night at Cinequests virtual screening room are on sale now at the Cinequest website.
