Toni Collette and Milly Alcock will lead Hot Mother, a survival thriller from Australian writer-director Lucy Knox that expands her 2020 short into a feature and is aiming to shoot in Australia next year. The film follows a mother and daughter who head to a remote wellness spa to reconnect and instead find themselves trapped in a sauna, turning a tense reunion into a physical and psychological fight to stay alive. Sales are being handled by Bankside Films with CAA Media Finance co-repping North America as the package is introduced to buyers around the American Film Market.
Knox makes her feature debut after the short Hot Mother played the European circuit and drew attention for its claustrophobic staging and sharply observed mother-daughter dynamic. The feature retains the core premise while scaling up the ordeal and centering two high-profile Australian leads: Collette, who will also executive produce via Vocab Films with Jen Turner, and Alcock, fresh off headline roles on both television and studio features. The producing team pairs Rapt Films’ Alex Coco, who produced the awards-season breakout Anora, with Carver Films partners Sarah Shaw and Anna McLeish, whose credits include Snowtown and Relic.
Early materials emphasize a contained, high-stakes narrative built for tension and performance, with the sauna setting functioning as both hazard and pressure cooker. Statements from the producers frame Knox as a filmmaker poised to move from festival-celebrated shorts to a wide-audience genre play, underscoring expectations that the star pairing and clean survival hook will travel. Positioning the project at AFM aligns with a market tilt toward elevated, cast-driven thrillers that can be produced efficiently and sold broadly without franchise baggage.
Bankside’s involvement signals a familiar path for English-language indies seeking global distribution partners, and packaging alongside CAA Media Finance suggests North American placement will be a near-term priority. With production targeting 2026 delivery windows, Hot Mother joins a cluster of Australia-based shoots leveraging local talent and producers with recent festival and awards momentum, aiming to convert a minimalist premise into mainstream suspense.
