Back in January, the Sundance Film Festival did something it had never done before: It held a cinematic screening of a TV show. Granted, it was a miniseries, so the program was only six hours, and not, say, 13. But it was a still a sign of enormous respect for the show’s principal director and executive producer, Jane Campion, the first female filmmaker to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes and one of the only women to be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars.
What’s more, the miniseries, Top of the Lake, reunites Campion with Holly Hunter, whom she directed in The Piano, and it stars Elisabeth Moss, of Mad Men fame. Set in New Zealand, it’s a crime story about a pregnant preteen who goes missing. The series has already earned a few raves.
Campion has made one miniseries before, An Angel at My Table, but that one showed in American movie theaters, rather than on a network. Top of the Lake will premiere on the Sundance Channel on March 18.
