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Trailer for Olivier Smolders Nuit Noire: Oscar, a conservator at the Natural Sciences Museum, passes the days exercising his passion for studying insects; if only there still were days. As long as people can remember, the sun only releases a few pathetic rays for fifteen seconds before noon. The rest of the time, the world is plunged into a night without end, a permanent eclipse. Coming home after work, Oscar finds an African woman in his bed. Suffering from a mysterious and incurable disease, she seems to have come to his place to die. Trapped between desire and repulsion, Oscar gradually abandons his life to terrifying phantoms.

The long awaited feature length debut film of talented short filmmaker Olivier Smolders (see also Spiritual Exercises DVD), Nuit Noire (Black Night) is mysterious, ghostly, technically impeccable, and continuously bathed in a magical, surreal light.

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Using vibrant colors against a backdrop of black and white, Ayman Mokhtar's film experiments with "the rhythmic potential in film as a time-dependent medium [which] needs to be explored and unleashed." Beautifully shot and based around a Doctor's inability to touch human skin, Anaphylaxis reminds me of Olivier Smolders' Nuit Noire.

A successful doctor, content with life, develops a strange illness – anaphylaxis, a severe allergy to human skin. He tries to defy his illness, but his life is tuned upside down by his inability to touch people. He can’t function professionally, socially or intimately with his fiancée, whom he eventually loses.

Then he discovers that dead bodies don’t trigger his illness. He withdraws from life around him to work as a pathologist, dealing only with dead bodies. Life is calm until he encounters a woman’s dead body covered from neck to toe with writing. Intrigued, he starts to read.

BUCHEON, South Korea -- After months of controversy, the ninth Puchon Fantastic Film Festival came to a close Thursday night, with Paul Fox's The Dark Hours taking the top prize, the Best of Puchon award. Joaquin Oristrell won the best director award for Unconscious. Best actor went to the four leads of the Thai film Rahtree: Returns -- Phan Rojanarangsri, Supaliorn Srisawat, Sowjai Sukjai and Banphot Weerarat. Best actress gongs were shared between Orsi Toth for Johanna and Kate Greenhouse for The Dark Hours. The Jury Choice award was won by Olivier Smolders' Nuit Noire and the Pruzio Citizen's Choice award went to Bharatbala Ganapathy's Hari Om.