Aspiring Filmmaker Cerda Takes First Step with The Abandoned

Nacho Cerdá has made it a habit to understand the purpose of death and how it fits into the context of modern society.

With that vision, the 37-year-old filmmaker has continued to pay his respect to the dead with his recent feature film debut, "The Abandoned."

The film tells the story of an American film producer named Marie (played by Anastasia Hille), who searches for her birth parents before learning that she has inherited a house in the middle of a forest in a rural area in Russia.

Being adopted and brought to America as a baby, Marie never knew her real mother. However, the only hint that remains from her past is her Russian farm home.

She soon learns that the house, abandoned and uninhabited for 40 years, represents her birthplace as well as the site of her mother's dead body, which has been found under rather bizarre circumstances.

But what she finds at the farm is much more than just a neglected house in disrepair.

Strange things begin to occur as Marie's guide disappears before she ends up meeting a mysterious man, Nikolai, who claims to be her twin brother. Together they discover that the house holds dangerous secrets to a past that they do not remember.

Stranded in their isolated home, Marie and Nikolai both become terrified by ghostly visions of their own kind wandering throughout the compound. As these dead versions of themselves move from building to building, history takes places in front of their eyes.

While reliving a series of horrifying events and shocking murders that occurred before they were born, the two siblings fend for their lives in a haunted house where their own ghosts patiently wait for their time to expire.

The horror further builds as the film progresses from scene to scene, but it doesn't take too long before Marie and Nikolai are revealed the reason for this depraved reunion and the secret behind their family.

With the film winning fan favorite award at After Dark's "8 Films to Die For" festival in 2006, After Dark Films and Lionsgate announced that "The Abandoned" would hit movie theatres Feb. 23.