News

Convinced she has only one more day to live, Françoise and her friend run away from their convent boarding school and hitch a lift to a party in a vast chateau in the middle of the woods. Here, amid decadence and occultist dalliances, she encounters various lost souls, including a sullen party guest who claims to be a vampire, as she struggles with fiery, prophetic visions and a sense that time is running out.

Set in 1967, La Morsure is a melancholy and mesmerising period piece, with notes of Rollin, Breillat, Argento and Hadzihalilovic. There are also echoes of Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, as Françoise (Léonie Dahan-Lamort) finds herself among a throng of revellers, none of whom appear to share her feelings of impending doom. Writer-director Romain de Saint-Blanquat sets the story in an in-between space, reflecting the threshold Françoise stands upon, but despite her intentions, seems.

"Remember you are dust, and will return to dust." Films Boutique has revealed a trailer for a Giallo thriller from France titled Bitten, originally called La Morsure in French. Yet another dark, grainy, gothic vampire thriller? This is premiering at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland underway now, just in time for its world premiere. A Catholic schoolgirl is convinced tonight is her last night on Earth and decides to attend a costume party with her best friend. Set in 1967 during Mardi Gras. Françoise is a 17-year-old boarder who sneaks out with her friend Delphine to attend a party and live the night as if it was her last... The director explains that he references are "films like Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson), Carrie (Brian De Palma), or Phenomena (Dario Argento) for their striking and intense visions of adolescence, distorted by a prism of fantasy. With this film...

Films Boutique will handle international sales on Filipino master Lav Díaz’s “Essential Truths of The Lake,” one of the highest-profile titles in the just announced main International Competition at this year’s Locarno Festival.

The Berlin and Lyon-based production-sales company’s fifth collaboration with Diaz following, among others, Venice Golden Bear Winner “The Woman Who Left” and Berlin Silver Bear Winner “Lullaby To A Sorrowful Mystery,” “Essential Truths of The Lake” marks a prequel to Diaz’s ‘When The Waves Are Gone’ that premiered out of competition at Venice last year.

It reprises the character of the ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators of the Philippines. When asked what drives a man to search for the truth, Papauran says dejectedly that maybe he just wants to keep inflicting pain on himself.

Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, he...

La Morsure

Another feature debut on our list that we’re highly curious about is this item that received some coin backing from Gan Film Foundation and moved into production exactly one year ago. French filmmaker Romain de Saint-Blanquat appears to be working with a 60’s spirit and early horror works template in La Morsure — the project, filmed in the South of France (mainly Normandy), sees Léonie Dahan-Lamort and Lilith Grasmug (Bloody Oranges) topline with Cyril Metzger (Happening), Maxime Rohart and Fred Blin completing the main cast. This was produced by Easy Tiger’s Marc-Benoit Créancier (Magnetic Beats).…...

Thomas Scimeca, Nicolas Belvalette, Jonathan Capdevielle and Léonie Dahan-Lamort are among the cast of this feature staged by Envie de tempête Productions. On Tuesday 30 March, Sébastien Betbeder wrapped the shoot for his eighth feature, Les Braves. Having risen to prominence at Locarno in 2007 with Nuage, and been selected for the Cannes Acid programme in 2013 and 2016 with 2 Autumns 3 Winters and Journey to Greenland, and for Toronto in 2012 and 2018 with Nights with Theodore and Ulysses & Mona, this time around, the director has assembled a cast toplined by Thomas Scimeca, Nicolas Belvalette, Jonathan Capdevielle (Boys Like Us) and Léonie Dahan-Lamort (the series Chronicles of the Sun). They are flanked by Marc Fraize, Aloïse Sauvage,...