The New Paradise Highway trailer features Morgan Freeman and Juliette Binoche in dramatic starring roles. Binoche plays a truck driver who becomes entangled in an illegal human trafficking scheme, and Freeman plays the veteran police officer tasked with finding her and rescuing the young girl she’s been forced to travel with. The story revolves around the less than savoury underbelly of the transportation industry. A perilous cross-country voyage is in order to defend the innocent child and bring down the person or persons responsible for the conspiracy. An ominous soundtrack sets the tone for what is to come in the film’s epic pursuit sequence.
To Freeman’s character, who is a police officer who has been on the duty for over 50 years, he is summoned to a house where a little girl has been confined in a cage. Freeman and his partner are on a mission to find her and put an end to any human trafficking enterprise she may have been a part of. Sally (Binoche) is doing her regular trucking tasks when her brother Dennis (Frank Grillo) pleads for a favour from prison. Freeman and the police are seeking the same girl, so she must drive her to her goal to keep her brother safe. With Freeman in close pursuit of Sally and the girl who goes by the name of Leila, the state line-hopping expedition starts.
The individuals who put Sally up to smuggling become angry when she decides to help Leila after she seems to kill the man to whom she was meant to be handed. Sally and Leila are in severe danger, and Freeman is right after them, but the trailer also hints at the film’s heart. As they flee, Sally and Leila form a relationship, and Freeman vows to do what’s right by the child and others who wish to rescue her. The film tries for a human look at individuals caught up in the horrors of human trafficking. Grillo, Finley, Cameron Monaghan, Veronica Ferres, and Christiane Seidel round out the supporting cast for Freeman and Binoche.
Anna Gutto is the first woman to write and direct a full film. Nowegian creative, who previously worked on multiple episodes of Netlfix’s Home for Christmas as a second director and co-director as well as creating the short film A Lucky Man, has a high-profile start. That film won her a student film award at the Calcutta International Cult Film Festival. Georgia Bayliff and Mike Leahy from the Silver Reel banner are also producers on the project. Silver Reel, Karol Griffiths and Karol Griffiths for Silver Reel; Gary Leff for Southland; Protect the Planet, Dorothea Sick Thiess and Silke Wilhinger for Silkway Films are the executive producers. In cinemas, on-demand, and on digital platforms, Paradise Highway will be released on July 29, 2018.