The East

The East is a 2013 thriller film directed by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, and Elliot Page. Writers Batmanglij and Marling spent two months in 2009 practicing freeganism and co-wrote a screenplay inspired by their experiences and drawing on thrillers from the 1970s. The American studio Fox Searchlight Pictures had bought rights to distribute Batmanglij's previous film Sound of My Voice and also collaborated with the director to produce The East. With Ridley Scott as producer and Tony Scott as executive producer, Fox Searchlight contracted Scott Free Productions, headquartered in London, to produce the film. The East was filmed in two months in Shreveport, Louisiana at the end of 2011. The film premiered to strong reviews at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on , 2013. It was released in theaters on , 2013. Plot Jane (Brit Marling), an operative for private intelligence firm Hiller Brood, is assigned by her boss, Sharon (Patricia Clarkson), to infiltrate The East, an underground activist, anarchist and environmentalist organization that has launched a vandalistic attack against a corporate leader and threatens two more as retribution for ecological crimes. Calling herself Sarah, she joins drifters in hitching train rides. When one drifter, Luca (Shiloh Fernandez), helps her escape from the police, she identifies the symbol of The East hanging from Luca's car mirror. Sarah self-inflicts an arm injury that she tells Luca was caused in the escape so he can get her medical attention. He takes her to a seemingly abandoned house in the woods where members of The East live and one of them, Doc (Toby Kebbell), treats her. Sarah is given two nights to recover before she must leave. At an elaborate dinner involving straitjackets, Sarah is tested and fails, exposing how selfishly she and many others live their lives. Sarah is caught spying one night by Eve (a group member who is deaf) and signs to her she is an undercover agent, threatening Eve with jail if she stays; Eve leaves the next morning. Sarah is recruited to fill the missing member's role on a "jam", an old fashioned term for direct action. Sarah reluctantly participates in The East's next jam and learns that the group's members have all been damaged by corporate activities. For example, Doc was poisoned by a fluoroquinolone antibiotic and his neurosystem is degenerating.