Marianna Palka is taking her indie thriller, Bitch, to the Sundance Film Festival of which kicks off tonight in Park City, Utah.

In the film, a woman snaps under crushing life pressures and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog. Her philandering, absentee husband is forced to become reacquainted with his four children and sister-in-law as they attempt to keep the family together during this bizarre crisis.

Jason Ritter, Jaime King, Marianna Palka, Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster star in the pic set to have its world premiere.

Jason Ritter and Brighton Sharbino appear in Bitch by Marianna Palka, an official selection of the Midnight program at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. © 2016 Sundance Institute | photo by Armando Salas.

Jill, a lonely, distraught housewife with four unruly children, paces on her dining room table with a belt around her neck, contemplating a desperate end to her wretchedness. Her husband, Bill, focused on his identity as breadwinner and an affair with a lusty co-worker, is as oblivious to Jill’s growing terror that she will do something destructive as he is to the panic at his unraveling company. Meanwhile, dogs bark and howl through the night, as one persistent mutt continually stalks the family’s yard. When Jill’s psyche finally breaks, she takes on a vicious new canine persona.

Marianna Palka (returning to the Festival after 2008’s Good Dick) writes, directs, and stars in this provocative film. She balances a whip-smart, deeply unsettling take on the horrors of a crumbling nuclear family with a palpable sensitivity for her character’s plight and perfectly timed comedic flourishes. Jason Ritter delivers a beautifully tragicomic performance as Bill, who’s transformed by bizarre crisis from an indifferent hound of a man entirely untethered from his family to their unexpected emotional anchor.

BDM scored an exclusive look at the film’s one-sheet, which shows the transformation this woman makes in the film. It was created by Mondo’s Jay Shaw.