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Lassoing the likes of Hafsia Herzi (fresh from showcasing The Little Sister in competition in Cannes), Benoît Magimel, Bastien Bouillon plus Monica Bellucci and Paul Hamy (The Ornithologist), Léa Mysius has locked in an impressive quintet for her rural drama thriller. In the works since 2023, Histoires De La Nuit (aka The Birthday Party) is now in production and seeing that her previous films Ava (2017) and Les cinq diables (read review) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Critic’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight sections we expect this to be a strong contender for a Croisette splash.…...

This week brings A24’s latest horror film and Sony’s final Venom movie home, alongside the next nightmare from the French duo behind hits including Inside and The Deep House.

Here’s all the new horror released on Tuesday, December 10, 2024!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

Fresh off a Golden Globes nomination for Hugh Grant, A24’s new horror movie Heretic from directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods has made its debut on at-home Digital today.

You can rent the film for $19.99 or purchase it for $24.99.

Hugh Grant (D&d: Honor Among Thieves), Chloe East (The Fabelmans) and Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”) lead the cast of the upcoming horror movie. In the film…

“Two missionaries are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed, becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse.”

Meagan Navarro...

"If you hear the whispers in his forest, he's come to eat your soul." Dark Sky Films has revealed an official trailer for The Soul Eater, a new horror thriller film from the acclaimed French horror filmmakers Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo. This first premiered at the 2024 Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year, with stops at other genre film festivals throughout 2024. From the two creators of Inside (2007), The Deep House, and Leatherface. When violent and gruesome deaths starts plaguing a small mountain village, an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces. Based on the French novel of the same name (Le Mangeur d’âmes) written by Alexis Laipsker. Who is "The Soul Eater" coming for next? The French horror film stars Emmanuel Lanzi, Malik Zidi, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, and Virginie Ledoyen. This trailer is for the English dubbed version - which will be added to its release in the US this fall.

French filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, the duo behind Inside, Leatherface, and The Deep House, step outside of horror ever so slightly for their latest, The Soul Eater. The adaptation of Alexis Laipsker‘s novel, penned by Annelyse Batrel and Ludovic Lefebvre, dabbles in the supernatural to lend atmosphere and intrigue to a standard investigative thriller. While its procedural elements may feel more rote, at least in an era inundated by crime thrillers, Maury and Bustillo pull from their horror toolkit and plunge into dark subject matter with aplomb.

Nestled in the French mountains is Roquenoir, a sleepy village on the cusp of becoming a full-blown ghost town. Just when it’s on the brink of being forgotten, a grisly murder so ruthless and inexplicable draws the attention of authorities beyond Roquenoir. Commander Elisabeth Guardiano (Virginie Ledoyen) arrives in town on assignment to investigate the murder, coinciding with Captain...

Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Francis Renaud | Written by Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre | Directed by Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

[Note: With the film screening as part of this year’s Fantasia Film Festival, here’s a reposting of my review of The Soul Eater from its screening at Glasgow Frightfest earlier this year]

Two detectives with entirely different work methods are sent to the sleepy French mountain town of Roquenoir. One is investigating a series of gruesome deaths. The other is searching for some missing local children. Soon, they realise their cases are connected… by an old folklore legend of a malevolent creature, the terrifying incarnation of the Soul Eater.

The Soul Eater is a suspenseful tale of small-town horror, very much akin to similar films set in abandoned “ghost” towns. The kinds of towns synonymous with closely guarding its secrets and a weariness of outsiders. And here the audience is very much an outsider, learning what’s happening at the same time as the film’s two protagonists – Franck...

Modern day Horror Masters Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury are back at it again with another chilling feature, here to ruin your day and make your skin crawl. Entitled, The Soul Eater, this new venture from France’s most frightening duo investigates the disappearance of a several children and a small forest town’s relation to a disturbing boogeymen legend. In line with Bustillo & Maury’s reputation for Nsfl moments of Horror The Soul Eater is a punch in the gut, and a montage of violent, nightmare imagery filtered through the tropes and traits of a cop procedural.

Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury are two of my favorite horror filmmakers working today, always pushing themselves to do something different and show horror fans something they haven’t seen before. Audiences around the world couldn’t look away at the extremity on display in their debut feature Inside (2007) and their particular brand of...

The 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival descends on Montreal July 18 for 3 weeks of wild, and wondrous cinema. Included among the official selections in the 2024 program are some of the years most anticipated horror releases, hidden gems from around the world, and even free events with acclaimed filmmakers, including Mike Flanagan! This year’s program includes E.L. Katz’s action-packed dialog-free post-apocalyptic nightmare Azrael, as well as In Our Blood a found footage shocker from documentarian-turned-horror-maestro Pedro Kos, and Rita from Jayro Bustamante who’s 2019 sleeper hit La Llorona grabbed the indie horror scene by the throat.

Needless to say, there are hundreds of movies at Fantasia that we can’t wait to sink our teeth into (including something called Chainsaws Are Singing which the fest has described as “Monty Python meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Les Misérables!?!). Below are the 10 horror movies we’re most excited to see and review for...

Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Francis Renaud | Written by Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre | Directed by Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

Two detectives with entirely different work methods are sent to the sleepy French mountain town of Roquenoir. One is investigating a series of gruesome deaths. The other is searching for some missing local children. Soon, they realise their cases are connected… by an old folklore legend of a malevolent creature, the terrifying incarnation of the Soul Eater.

The Soul Eater is a suspenseful tale of small-town horror, very much akin to similar films set in abandoned “ghost” towns. The kinds of towns synonymous with closely guarding its secrets and a weariness of outsiders. And here the audience is very much an outsider, learning what’s happening at the same time as the film’s two protagonists – Franck and Elizabeth – which the film is very much mystery-driven.

However, once the...

You don’t need to have lived in the proverbial middle of nowhere to understand the kind of terror Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Soul Eater mines from the fictional Roquenoix. As shot by Simon Roca, this remote hamlet in northeastern France isn’t a ghost town so much as a burial ground where humans and buildings alike are waiting to rot. A grandiose sanatorium once towered over the tree-shrouded hills, bringing in enough cash and tourists to fill the village’s coffers. But when a motorway was built across the valley, the tourists disappeared, the sanatorium was abandoned; and the few who stayed behind were left to wrestle with an ancestral legend and a series of murders that may or may not be connected with it.

The single most terrifying thing in The Soul Eater isn’t the titular devourer, but that spectral, lifeless town where its victims are stranded.

French filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside, Leatherface, The Deep House) are back with The Soul Eater, and we’ve got a new image for you today.

Check it out below, along with a better look at a previously released shot above.

The upcoming movie is an adaptation of the novel by Alexis Laipsker.

In The Soul Eater, “The chilling drama unfolds against the backdrop of a mountain village where an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces following the disappearance of local children and a series of violent and gruesome deaths.”

Virginie Ledoyen (Rabid Dogs, The Beach), Paul Hamy (Get In), and Sandrine Bonnaire star.

The directors reteam with Kandisha cinematographer Simon Roca for their latest.

The Soul Eater is produced by Phase 4 Productions and Place du Marché Productions and will receive a theatrical release in France. No word yet on a US release date. Stay tuned.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the last horror film from the filmmaking duo of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo would be an adaptation of the Alexis Laipsker novel The Soul Eater (a.k.a. Le mangeur d’âmes), with Virginie Ledoyen (The Beach), Paul Hamy (The Ornithologist), and Sandrine Bonnaire (Women at War) taking on the lead roles. Now Deadline reports that WTFilms will be presenting The Soul Eater, which is currently in post-production, to potential buyers at the upcoming American Film Market. That presentation will include a screening of an early promo of the film. Along with that report comes the unveiling of a creepy first look image, which can be seen at the bottom of this article.

The Soul Eater has the following synopsis: “He didn’t scream. They never scream.” Some well-kept secrets sometimes turn out to be too heavy to bear… When the disappearance...

Up next from French filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, best known for their ultra-violent slasher Inside and aquatic haunted house tale The Deep House, is an adaptation of grisly thriller The Soul Eater by Alexis Laipsker. Thanks to Deadline, a new image teases the eerie horror feature.

Maury announced production on the film earlier this year via Instagram, the seventh feature film for Maury and Bustillo.

In The Soul Eater, “The chilling drama unfolds against the backdrop of a mountain village where an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces following the disappearance of local children and a series of violent and gruesome deaths.”

The directors reteam with Kandisha cinematographer Simon Roca for their latest.

Virginie Ledoyen (Rabid Dogs, The Beach), Paul Hamy (Get In), and Sandrine Bonnaire star.

The novel’s official synopsis also indicates another bloody genre film for the filmmakers:

“‘He didn’t scream. They never scream.

Exclusive: Paris-based genre special WTFilms has boarded Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury’s horror thriller ‘The Soul Eater’ ahead of the AFM.

The chilling drama unfolds against the backdrop of a mountain village where an old legend about a malevolent creature resurfaces following the disappearance of local children and a series of violent and gruesome deaths.

Virginie Ledoyen (Just the Two of Us) and Paul Hamy (The Last Journey) co-star as two police detectives with very different methods who are sent to investigate the crimes. Sandrine Bonnaire (Happening) joins them in the cast.

The production is adapted from French writer Alexis Laipsker’s bestseller of the same name. WTFilms will screen a first promo for the French-language film which is in post-production.

Directorial duo Bustillo and Maury gained fans in the U.S. for their 2021 English-language supernatural horror The Deep House, which was acquired by Blumhouse Television and Epix for North America,...

Thicker Than Water (Jusqu’ici tout va bien) is a series directed by Nawell Madani and Simon Jablonka and starring Nawell Madani and Kahina Carina.

A lot of social conflict in this French series that deals (quite a lot) with social conflict and, as a thriller, lets itself get away.

It follows in the wake of French cinema, it is not great technically, but it has many virtues in the development of the characters, which are treated with much respect in a script that respects itself and knows how to get where it wants to go.

Of course, it may be that the place where the script wants to go is not the same place that viewers who want to see a more “pure” thriller would like to see it end up.

About the Series

We did not know her, but write down her name, Nawell Madani, an actress who plays the role to perfection,...

The French filmmaking duo of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo caught international attention with their debut feature, the brutal home invasion story Inside, in 2007. Since then, Maury and Bustillo have continued working in the horror genre, making the films Livid, Among the Living, Leatherface (a prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Kandisha, and The Deep House. Now Maury has taken to Instagram to announce that they have officially started production on their seventh feature, an adaptation of the Alexis Laipsker novel The Soul Eater (a.k.a. Le mangeur d’âmes). Laipsker also celebrated the start of production, tweeting out a promotional image that reveals The Soul Eater stars Virginie Ledoyen (The Beach), Paul Hamy (The Ornithologist), and Sandrine Bonnaire (Women at War). You can take a look at that image at the bottom of this article.

Maury shared an image of a clapperboard that reveals the cinematographer on The Soul Eater is Simon Roca,...

French filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, best known for their ultra-violent slasher Inside and aquatic haunted house tale The Deep House, are tackling an adaptation of the grisly thriller The Soul Eater by Alexis Laipsker.

Maury announced on Instagram that production has officially begun on The Soul Eater, the seventh feature film for Maury and Bustillo. Author Laipsker also took to Twitter to share that production is now underway, along with artwork that teases an ominous tone below.

The novel’s official synopsis indicates another bloody genre film for the filmmakers:

“‘He didn’t scream. They never scream.’ Some well-kept secrets sometimes turn out to be too heavy to bear. When the disappearance of children and bloody murders multiply uneventfully in a small mountain village, an old legend shrouded in sulfur resurfaces. Urged on by their respective departments, Commander Guardiano and Captain of the Gendarmerie De Rolan are...

"We're not playing gangsters. We play it smart." Netflix has revealed the official trailer for a new French crime thriller series titled Thicker Than Water, arriving for streaming in early April. A journalist's life devolves into chaos when she shields her brother from the law, inadvertently entangling her family in a drug lord's merciless scheme. Belgian humorist Nawell Madani leads this dramatic crime series, alongside Djebril Zonga and Paola Locatelli. The title, which is a reference to the phrase "blood is thicker than water," defines this series that's about the importance of sisterhood & family. The cast includes Kahina Carina, Carima Amarouche, Aïda Guechoud, Mayane Sarah El Baze, Paul Hamy, Vincent Rottiers, and Walid Afkir. This seems like a legit series, though a bit campy with the drug plot. It has a good setup and a clever cast bringing levity to this drug lord story. Take a look below. // Continue Reading...

Last Journey of Paul W.R. Trailer — Romain Quirot‘s Last Journey of Paul W.R. / Le Dernier Voyage (2020) movie trailer has been released by Goldwyn Films. The Last Journey of Paul W.R. trailer stars Hugo Becker, Jean Reno, Paul Hamy, Bruno Lochet, Franc Bruneau, and Lya Oussadit-Lessert. Crew The screenplay is written by Romain Quirot, [...]

Continue reading: Last Journey Of Paul W.R. (2020) Movie Trailer: An Astronaut is Earth’s Only Hope from The Red Moon in Romain Quirot’s Scifi Film...

"If it's protecting the Earth, why is it coming straight at us?" This looks cool! Samuel Goldwyn Films has revealed an official US trailer for a French adventure movie titled Last Journey of Paul W.R., which originally premiered back in 2020. This is finally getting a US release after two years of waiting. This looks like an epic sci-fi thriller, and the title is an extension of the French version which is just The Last Journey. The red moon threatens our existence on earth. Our only hope is the enigmatic Paul Wr, the most talented astronaut of its generation. But few hours before the start of the Great mission, Paul disappeared. There's all kinds of strange and interesting things going on in this, almost like a dusty, post-apocalyptic Jean-Pierre Jeunet meets Luc Besson kind of film. The cast includes Hugo Becker as Paul W.R., with Jean Reno, Paul Hamy,...

French parable features a ‘red moon’ that provides Earth with fuel, but our last hope refuses a mission to destroy it

This ambitious French sci-fi parable has some quiet moments of beauty and poignancy, but otherwise it’s a long slog – and so bombastic, jejune and ill-considered that it feels far more drawn out than the 87 minutes running time would suggest. In writer-director Romain Quirot’s vision of the future, humanity has worked out how to mine an inexhaustible power supply from an astral object that happens to wander by; it is called, unimaginatively, “the red moon”. This heavenly body appears to be like the living, sentient planet in Stanislaw Lem’s novel Solaris, and our hero Paul Wr (Hugo Becker) can somehow sense that the red moon is quite cross with us earthlings for some reason.

That would appear to be why he refuses to fly a mission to destroy the approaching lunar body,...

Romain Quirot’s “Paul W.R.’s Last Journey,” an ambitious film mixing science fiction with an ecological tale, has been sold by Kinology to major distributors, including Samuel Goldwyn Films in North America.

Represented in international markets by Kinology, the high-concept French-language movie has also been acquired by Altitude in the U.K., Notorious in Italy, Eurovideo in Germany, Monolith in Poland, Capella in Cis and Blitz in ex-Yugoslavia. Kinology, which had three movies in competition at Cannes including Leos Carax’s “Annette,” is negotiating deals in several other territories.

Set in a near-future marked by ecological havoc, a mysterious red moon heads straight to Earth. Paul W.R., the only astronaut capable of saving mankind, discovers the secret behind the red moon and the reason why it must not be destroyed. Relentlessly hunted down, Paul encounters Elma, a feisty teenage girl who follows him on his quest for truth.

Grégoire Melin,...

Madame Claude

A Parisian period piece about a 1960s brothel madame wasn’t in the cards for 2020, but Sylvie Verheyde‘s sixth feature Madame Claude will surely set its sights on a 2021 fest. Reuniting with Karole Rocher who previously appeared in Verheyde’s 2012 Confessions of a Child of the Century as well as her 2016 title Sex Doll) as the lead, Verheyde rounds out a supporting cast featuring Roschdy Zem, Garance Marillier, Benjamin Biolay, Pierre Deladonchamps, Josephine de la Baume, plus two more Sex Doll cast members, Hafsia Herzi and Paul Hamy. Produced by Florence Gastaud, the title is notably lensed by Leo Hinstin.…...

"Stop analyzing her. You can't even analyze yourself." Music Box Films has released an official US trailer for the French drama Sibyl, which first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. This complex, "sly, sultry character study from filmmaker Justine Triet" is about a jaded psychotherapist named Sibyl, who decides to return to her first passion of becoming a writer. But it's much more than that. She ends up being convinced by a patient of hers, a famous actress, to go to the tropical set of the film she's shooting and help her deal with emotional problems being stirred up by a passionate affair. The actress is sleeping with her co-star, Igor, who happens to be married to the film's director. However, as Sibyl drifts away from therapy, she realizes the actress is great inspiration for her next book. Starring Virginie Efira, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Gaspard Ulliel, Sandra Hüller,...

Furie is a French and Belgium feature. This title looks at a family, returning from a holiday. Unfortunately, squatters have take over their home. Furie, also known as Get In or Die Trying (Uhm), has had a run on the film festival circuit, in 2019. Supposedly based on a true story, this feature has begun a home entertainment release in Europe. Directed by Olivier Abbou, this film centrally stars: Adama Niane (Baise-moi), Stéphane Caillard (The Take) and Paul Hamy. A trailer for the film was released in 2019 (found below) and new stills are available here, as well. The trailer is exclusively in French, with French subtitles. Some of the dialogue mentions: "no response on the phone," "squatters," "missing children" and a "plan." This Canadian's French could still use some improvement. However, the trailer does show one family struggling with a difficult situation, while terrorized by a group intent on class warfare.

Bac Films has closed several deals on Bernard Stora’s “The Case,” a psychological thriller set in the South of France starring Niels Arestrup. The film had its market premiere at the UniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris, a five-day showcase of French movies wrapping on Jan. 20.

Arestrup stars in “The Case” as Luc Germon, a famous lawyer whose new client, Gilles Fontaine (Patrick Bruel) is a powerful business man suspected of having acquired his magnificent property on the French Riviera in a dubious condition. The movie was picked up for Spain (Vercine Distribución), China (Huanxi Media), Taiwan (Av-Jet) and Benelux (Athena Films).

Paul Hamy (“Sibyl”) and Michel Bouquet (“Renoir”) complete the cast. “The Case” was produced by Jpg Films and Bac Films which will release the movie during the second semester of this year.

During the UniFrance Rendez-Vous, Bac Films also hosted the market premieres of “Yakari, A Spectacular Journey,...

Madame Claude

Director Sylvie Verheyde returns to the world of the sex worker in her sixth feature, Madame Claude, a Parisian period piece about a 1960s brothel madame. Reuniting with Karole Rocher as the lead, Verheyde rounds out a supporting cast featuring Roschdy Zem, Garance Marillier, Benjamin Biolay, Pierre Deladonchamps, Josephine de la Baume, plus two more Sex Doll cast members, Hafsia Herzi and Paul Hamy. Produced by Florence Gastaud, the title is notably lensed by Leo Hinstin (the Dp on Bonello’s 2016 title Nocturama).…...

Gregoire Melin’s Paris-based Kinology is attending the Afm with an eclectic slate of ambitious films from emerging as well as seasoned French directors, including the science fiction adventure movie “The Last Journey of Paul W. R.,” and “How I Became a Super Hero,” France’s first superhero thriller.

Directed by Romain Quirot, “The Last Journey of Paul W.R.” expands on the critically acclaimed 2015 short film by the same name that won an award at the Berlin Short Film Festival, and played at Tribeca, among other festivals. It was also a top 50 finalist for the 2017 Oscar Shorts

The dystopian film is set in 2050, at a time when temperatures have reached unbearable heights, most wildlife species have gone extinct and hundreds of millions of people have become climate refugees. Only one man can save the world, it’s Paul Wr, the most talented astronaut of its generation.

Currently in production,...

Justine Triet makes her Cannes competition debut with this unconvincing film about an alcoholic therapist who mines a patient’s life for drama

Some movies find themselves wading up to their thighs in a treacle-lake of their own pointlessness. One such is Sybil, directed and co-written by French film-maker Justine Triet, making her Cannes competition debut. It is a muddled, silly comedy-drama starring Virginie Efira as a psychotherapist ironically named Sybil (no one could be less like the fabled ancient Greek soothsayer).

Ten years previously, Sybil was a bestselling author who went for a big career change for personal reasons: she had a painful breakup with her partner Gabriel (Niels Schneider), with whom she has a child. Now she is reasonably happy with a new partner, Etienne (Paul Hamy), though she still struggles with alcohol addiction. She has had another child but is yearning to return to her literary vocation.

How often do we see a movie psychotherapist who’s actually good at their job? Genre film is peppered with on-screen couch doctors whose unorthodox methods or blatant non-professionalism keep the story rolling, whether they’re falling in love with clients or going steadily mad themselves. Played with smart, subtle verve by Virginie Efira, the title character in Justine Triet’s “Sibyl” is a notable addition to the cracked-shrink club, and the fact that she’s cribbing her clients’ confessions for the lurid novel she’s writing is only the start of it: Triet’s chic, blackly comic psychodrama piles up bad decisions like so many profiteroles in a croquembouche, admiring the teetering spectacle of its chaos as it goes. Indeed, the tail-end of this year’s Cannes competition was the ideal place to program a film that effectively plays as cinematic dessert — albeit less a choux puff than a lemon tart,...

Exclusive: Here’s some distinctive first footage of sci-fi-thriller Jessica Forever, which is getting its European premiere in Berlin’s Panorama strand after closing Toronto’s Platform section last year.

The English and French-language film from first-time directors Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel centers on a woman and her makeshift family of rehabilitated marauders fighting for peace in a dystopian world where violent misfits reign supreme.

Shudder, the AMC Networks genre streaming service, picked up North American and Australia/New Zealand rights last year. International sales rep MK2 has also closed deals for China with DDDream International, Japan with Klockworx and Mexico with Canibal Networks. Le Pacte will release in France.

The pic drew praise from critics out of Tiff last year and looks to bring an auteur take to a tried and tested genre premise. Aomi Muyock (Love), Sebastian Urzendowsky (The Counterfeiters), Lucas Ionesco and Paul Hamy star. Emmanuel Chaumet produces.

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Neïl Beloufa's Occidental (2017) is showing January 10 – February 8, 2019 exclusively on Mubi.In the age of globalization, French-Algerian visual artist Neïl Beloufa addresses the slippery slope of human interaction, empathy, and prejudice, cloaked in kitsch 1970s hotel environment. Shot entirely at his own studio south of Paris, Occidental is his second feature film, yet Beloufa’s career is prolific with mixed media installations and docu-fiction short films. By setting the time and tone of the film fifty years in the past, the artist makes a clear commentary on the contemporary state of exception, exemplified by protests, suspicions, homophobia, and racism—all of it glazed in vivid reds, greens, and pink, soaked in a moody score. Occidental is both a critical nod and a tribute to an imagined, capitalized, pseudo-tolerant, Wicked West. The film is centered around the Parisian hotel Occidental,...

Sibyl

Following the runaway success of her 2016 sophomore film Victoria, director Justine Triet returns with the highly anticipated dramedy Sibyl, filmed in secret over the summer of 2018 and featuring a high profile cast consisting of her Victoria star Virginie Efira, Adele Exarchopoulos, Gaspard Ulliel, Niels Schneider, Laura Calamy, Paul Hamy, and Sandra Huller. Produced by David Thion and Phillip Martin for Les Films Pelleas, the title is also co-produced by France 2 Cinema, Les Films de Pierre, Page 114, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Cinema and Belgium’s Scope Pictures. Triet also reunites with her Victoria Dp Simon Beufils.…...

22 films in the Panorama programme so far, with nine directorial debuts.

The first 22 titles from the 2019 Berlin Film Festival (Feb 7-17) Panorama programme have been revealed.

Scroll down for the full line-up

The European premiere of UK director Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, starring Tilda Swinton, her daughter Honor Swinton-Byrne and Tom Burke, and the world premiere of Seamus Murphy’s Pj Harvey documentary A Dog Called Money are among the titles confirmed today.

The line-up also includes the directing debuts of actors Jonah Hill (Mid90s) and Alexander Gorchilin (Acid), and Rob Garver’s documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael,...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed a large selection of movies for its Panorama strand. Section head Paz Lázaro and co-curator and programme manager Michael Stütz have revealed 22 titles, 14 of which will be world premieres.

Among highlights are Jonah Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s; Jamie Bell starrer Skin, about the USA’s neo-Nazi scene; Tilda Swinton drama The Souvenir; and What She Said: The Art Of Pauline Kael, about the legendary film critic.

Panorama Films:

37 Seconds – Japan

by Hikari (Mitsuyo Miyazaki)

with Mei Kayama, Misuzu Kanno, Makiko Watanabe, Shunsuke Daitō, Yuka Itaya

World premiere – Debut film

Director Hikari, aka Mitsuyo Miyazaki, tells the story of Yuma, a young Japanese woman who suffers from cerebral palsy. Torn between her obligations towards her family and her dream to become a manga artist, Yuma struggles to lead a self-determined life.

Dafne – Italy

by Federico Bondi

with Carolina Raspanti, Antonio Piovanelli,...

Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, “mid90s,” about a 13-year-old skateboarder’s coming of age, and a documentary on influential film critic Pauline Kael are among the works that will screen in the Panorama section of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.

Films starring Tilda Swinton and Jamie Bell and titles from countries including Israel, Brazil and Japan were also announced in the first batch of 22 Panorama selections unveiled by the Berlinale on Tuesday. Nine of the films are debut works, and 14 will have their world premiere in the German capital. The section is curated by Paz Lázaro and co-curator and program manager Michael Stütz.

“mid90s” follows teenage Stevie as he joins up with four skateboarding punks who take him under their wing. Variety described Hill’s debut film as “a slice of street life made up of skittery moments that achieve a bone-deep reality. And because you believe what you’re seeing,...

Exclusive: Shudder, the AMC Networks genre streaming service, has jumped in to acquire North American rights to Jessica Forever, the dystopian thriller that will have its world premiere as the closing-night film of the Platform section at next month’s Toronto Film Festival. The film from first-time directors Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel will now bow exclusively on Shudder in 2019.

The pic, in English and French, centers on a woman and her makeshift family of rehabilitated marauders fighting for peace in a dystopian world where violent misfits reign supreme. Aomi Muyock, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Lucas Ionesco and Paul Hamy star.

“Jessica Forever is a visionary and surprising movie from two amazing first-time filmmakers that we can’t wait to share with Shudder members,” Shudder Gm Craig Engler said.

The deal was made by Shudder and MK2 Films, which is repping worldwide sales.

The Toronto Film Festival runs September 6-16. The Platform...

It takes more than 9 Fingers (9 Doigts) to count the number of bizarre twists and surreal happenings in this latest cyberpunk film noir by French iconoclast F. J. Ossang. Like his earlier works, this stunningly lensed whatchamacallit is rather hard to fathom and features a cast of oddballs speaking in fragments of poetic dialogue, all the while dressed in black and wearing sunglasses indoors.

Ostensibly, the story tracks an innocent man, Magloire (Paul Hamy), who gets caught up in a bad heist and then lands on a freighter ship heading to nowhere — actually towards Nowhereland, as one of...

French-Algerian visual artist and filmmaker Neïl Beloufa’s second feature, Occidental, opens in media res as its eponymous setting, the tawdry Hotel Occidental, is going up in flames. Its exterior is beset by clashing police and protesters while a man is vexedly trapped inside one of the inn’s rooms, seemingly more annoyed than distraught despite his presently dire situation. This familiar setup suggests that, by the time the film catches up with this scene, the chain of events that preceded it will have provided some clarity or context for the sequence and lead to a fuller understanding of how and why things wound up this way. But as the subsequent opening credits, set against images of the lethargic, largely anonymous protest that led to the ensuing riots, imply with their dual-layered text (tinted by retro pastels scattered haphazardly around the frame), this will not be the case. Beloufa aims...

Two Chinese girls rescue a drowning bird-watcher in this playful, increasingly surreal film

A playful, queer riff on the last chapter in the life of St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint for the recovery of lost items, The Ornithologist follows a beautiful, pouty bird-watcher named Fernando (Paul Hamy) as he observes the wildlife populating the misty woods and winding rivers of north-east Portugal. Things quickly take a turn for the bizarre when his kayak snaps and his waterlogged body is rescued by two Chinese girls (self-styled “good Christian girls”), who wrap him in foil, revive him with some “ancient tea” and, er, tie him up. Director João Pedro Rodrigues seems more interested in how to get from one bit of story to another than overall narrative clarity, but the steel-stomached will find there’s fun to be had with the film’s investment in the spectacle of bodies (variously...

This seductive and playful retelling of the life of St Anthony of Padua, set in a jungle in northern Portugal, recalls the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

At certain moments in this dreamily erotic, playfully baffling and beautifully shot movie, I found myself thinking of the naked Pan shepherd at the beginning of Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death. There is the same elusive sense of humour. The Ornithologist is highly diverting and seductive, a pastoral of sorts, and a secular meditation on faith and acceptance, very loosely derived from the life of St Anthony of Padua. However, it retreats into a kind of shaggy-dog whimsy by the end, and doesn’t entirely live up to its visionary promise.

A bird-watcher called Fernando (Paul Hamy) is looking for black storks in remote northern Portugal. Transfixed by the sight of them through his binoculars while kayaking, he incautiously...

Yes, we know: It’s a little premature to assemble a list of the best movies of the year when there’s so much left of it. We have yet to see a lot of exciting new work from major auteurs like Christopher Nolan (“Dunkirk”), Alexander Payne (“Downsizing”), and Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”), not to mention heavy-hitting studio-produced spectacles like “Blade Runner 2049” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” But those last two wouldn’t even qualify for this list of the best independent films of the year, anyway, and they’ll have plenty of time to hog the spotlight.

Fortunately, we’ve found plenty of movies from around the world to celebrate, and while they haven’t all been box office sensations, they provide overwhelming evidence that the art form is thriving well into the second decade of the new millennium, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Sometimes, finding a way into theaters can be a touch difficult. Especially for pieces of world cinema.

This has been the case for director Joao Pedro Rodrigues, and his latest film The Ornithologist. Despite garnering some buzz behind films like Human Capital, Rodrigues is ostensibly a new voice to many cinephiles. Yet, one would assume that if your picture gathered great notices out of festivals as prestigious as Toronto and as critically important as Rotterdam and Locarno, your film would be the talk of the town as soon as festival season was over?

Well, nearly a year after making its first premiere, The Ornithologist has finally fostered a theatrical release with the help of the fine folks at Strand Releasing, and it couldn’t have come at a better, albeit relatively late, moment on the calendar.

Just the pitch perfect type of quiet counter programming to battle the giant robots and caped crusaders taking control of screens across the country, Ornithologist tells the story of the titular bird watcher and a fateful journey into a Portuguese forest.

We meet Fernando (Paul Hamy), a lonesome bird expert as he floats down a river in the northern part of Portugal, hunting for endangered black storks. The premise doesn’t sound enticing, yet when Fernando comes in contact a pair of Chinese girls on their own journey to Santiago de Compostela, things take a decidedly bizarre turn. Saved by the duo after getting swept away by rapids, Fernando finds himself lost deep within the forest, unsure of how (or if he will ever) make it out. Along his journey he’ll meet a variety of men and women who may not seem at first glance like catalysts for great change within him, yet spark an evolution entirely unexpected.

A quiet and unassuming picture, Ornithologist is first and foremost an enticing piece of formalism. Told through softly spoken, static shots marked by the occasional burst of energy (be it a montage or a new discovery happened upon by our lead), the film is one of tones and moods. Much like, arguably, his best film, The Last Time I Saw Macao, Rodrigues crafts painterly, often quietly erotic images that are only elevated by some truly awe-inspiring photography. Sequences shift from warm, waterfront shots of a beautiful Fernando sunbathing in his underwear, to an icy sequence that finds that same topless Fernando tied of to a tree with castration being threatened. From the sun soaked sequences shore side to the deep blacks and blues we encounter as we ourselves get lost in the dense forest in front of us, the photography here is really superlative. The camera work is relatively straightforward, yet each frame is buzzing with an energy rooted squarely in Rodrigues’ use of this camera work.

Throughout his journey, Fernando comes across many a person who will ultimately lead him to the film’s sure-to-be polarizing (read: brilliant) final sequence. Ranging from a mute boy named Jesus to a pack of topless, gun-weilding women speaking Latin on horseback, narratively the film owes a great debt to classical odyssey tales. Drawing comparisons to filmmakers ranging from Bunuel to Weerasethakul, Rodrigues’ use of narrative is not so much baroque (there isn’t much specificity given to the world surrounding our lead) as it is absurdist, offering a great deal of thematic depth through moments that, taken in a vacuum, don’t seem to mean much. The film opens on a quote from St. Anthony, showing its themes from the opening frames. Deeply rooted in existential issues, the film is at once a film of queer self discovery, and also asks large existential questions which it never truly quite answers. The final frame of the picture hints and Rodrigues’ idea of how to combat deep existential angst, but there is an obtuseness, an otherworldliness to this film that makes it something entirely it’s own.

João Pedro Rodrigues won the Best Director award at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival for The Ornithologist, a surreal drama (and one of our favorites of the festival) following Fernando (Paul Hamy), a solitary ornithologist searching for an endangered black stork along a remote river in Portugal. Fernando is swept away in the river, only to be rescued by two girls. Afterwards, Fernando travels further into the wilderness in a journey that mimics the life of Saint Anthony of Padua.

“How do you portray a Saint as a transcendental being?,” the director told us at Locarno. “But portraying a man or a woman. So you have to give him or her features. There’s the model. Many painters painted models as the Virgin Mary or what. But they’re all mythical figures and you don’t know if they existed or not. But I like his idea of, “How do you embody transcendency?...

With the year's first quarter over, we're listing our favorites in multiple categories. Why? Well, each month of the year tends to contain good work so why pretend otherwise when Oscar season rolls around and only 3 months worth of releases are considered? (We already listed best technical achievements)

Here are the 17 male performances (divvied up into 3 categories) that I was most taken with in the first quarter of 2017. For your consideration...

7 Favorite Lead Performances

Paul Hamy as "Fernando / António" in The Ornithologist

(would also top a "sexiest" list were we doing one) 

16 more talented men after the jump...

Katell Quillévéré on Steven Spielberg's E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial: "For me it was something from my childhood ..." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The danger of living is lurking at every corner at the start of Katell Quillévéré's medical thriller Heal The Living (Réparer Les Vivants), co-written with Gilles Taurand, based on a novel by Maylis De Kerangal, starring Emmanuelle Seigner, Kool Shen (Catherine Breillat's Abus De Faiblesse with Isabelle Huppert), Tahar Rahim, Gabin Verdet, Théo Choldbi, and Finnegan Oldfield (Thomas Bidegain's Les Cowboys).

I first met Katell Quillévéré when she was presenting her film Suzanne, which stars Sara Forestier, Adèle Haenel, François Damiens, and Paul Hamy. Katell also participated, along with Julie Gayet, Axelle Ropert, Isabelle Giordano, Rebecca Zlotowski, Stacie Passon, Ry Russo-Young, Deborah Kampmeier, and Justine Triet, in activities at the French Institute Alliance Française on International Women’s Day during the 2014 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York.

NEWSAndrzej WajdaJust under a month since his latest film, Afterimage, received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda (Ashes and Diamonds, Man of Marble) has died at the age of 90.How precious two minutes of film can be! The Czech national film archives have identified a previously lost film by Georges Méliès, says The Guardian: "The two-minute silent film Match de Prestidigitation (“conjuring contest”) from 1904 was found on a reel given to the archives by an anonymous donor, labelled as another film."The digital home of films in the Criterion Collection have moved around over the years, and, as of October 19, will find a new access point as an add-on subscription to Turner's new streaming service, FilmStruck. The service launches October 19.French director F.J. Ossang has surprisingly turned to crowdfunding to finish his new feature, 9 Doigts ("9 Fingers"). Shot in black and white 35 mm,...

Nathaniel R reporting from the New York Film Festival 

Would it help if I could speak Portuguese? Perhaps an intimate knowledge of Portugal's history and politics or a Catholic education would do the trick? What is it exactly about films from Portugal that make them so impenetrable? The latest confusion-maker from the Iberian peninsula, on the heels of last year's confounding but intermittently wondrous Arabian Nights, is The Ornithologist by Joao Pedro Rodrigues.

The film begins, literally enough, with a long sequence in which our protagonist Fernando (Paul Hamy, a fine Tom Hardy-like specimen) watches birds for hours in an idyllic lake. He also takes a swim, has cel phone trouble when he tries to take a call, and kayaks further into nature to see rarer birds. The opening act, part nature documentary, part contemplative reverie is superb. Both the cinematography and its subjects are beautiful and irresistibly unknowable.

It’s not hard to get a sense for the big movies at this year’s edition of the New York Film Festival. Ava Duvernay’s Netflix documentary “13th” will open the festival with much fanfare over its powerful message about America’s broken justice system. Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” has many anticipating its inventive storytelling technology, and “20th Century Women” is said to be a terrific showcase for Annette Bening. Add in a number of festival favorites, from “Moonlight” to “Manchester By the Sea,” and the current edition of Nyff looks like a terrific consolidation of 2016 cinematic highlights.

But these headline-grabbing titles aren’t the whole story. A tightly-curated program assembled by a handful of discerning cinephiles, the festival offers a number of lower-profile titles that are just as worthy of your attention. Here’s a look at 10 of them.

“Aquarius”

Like so many...

This was a busy year at Tiff, where I was a juror for Fipresci, helping to award a prize for best premiere in the Discovery section. Not only did this mean that some other films had to take a back burner—sadly, I did not see Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge—but my writing time was a bit compromised as well. Better late than never? That is for you, Gentle Reader, to decide.Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany)So basic in the telling—a record of several days’ worth of visitors mostly to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienberg, Germany—Austerlitz is a film that in many ways exemplifies the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. What is the net effect for humanity when, faced with the drive to remember the unfathomable, we employ the grossly inadequate tools at our disposal?Austerlitz takes its name from W. G. Sebald’s final novel.

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival was another dense program filled with lots of new films in need of distribution. Fortunately, many of the highlights — from awards season heavyweights like “Jackie,” which went to Fox Searchlight, to smaller-scale crowdpleasers like “Tramps,” a Netflix acquisition — are guaranteed to find audiences beyond the Tiff arena. And most buyers agreed that this was, generally speaking, a pretty healthy year. Nevertheless, as the festival came to a conclusion, several great movies in the lineup remained homeless. Here are some of the ones that IndieWire wants to bring to the attention of all the buyers out there. We hope they’re paying attention.

See MoreThe 2016 IndieWire Tiff Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival

“Boundaries”

With her underrated debut film “Sarah Prefers to Run,” Chloé Robichaud made one of the best coming-of-age stories in recent years. For her follow-up, the Québécois writer-director widened her focus,...