News

Women have been equated with witches for centuries now. The opening credit of Saïd Belktibia’s “Hood Witch (Roqya)” establishes that in a matter of a few seconds – running us through all the blame that has been put upon women just because some of them decide to stand up to the regressive nature of the patriarchy, refusing to be controlled. The idea with which the film begins is an interesting one too.

In Paris, Nour (Golshifteh Farahani) makes a living selling exotic animals – lizards, snakes, frogs, and other reptiles – to healers who use them in their witchcraft and exorcism processes. She is estranged from her abusive husband Dylan (Jérémy Ferrari) who often comes in her way threatening her of copping her out for her scheming ways. In hindsight, he wants to have sole custody of their son Amine (Amine Zariouhi).

Amine is fond of his mother, and occasionally helps her build an app named “Barakha,...

Religious fanaticism collides with modern society in the social media age in the French horror thriller Hood Witch. Dark Sky Films has unveiled the official trailer today, unleashing an intense witchhunt for its titular witch.

Hood Witch releases in select theaters and digital platforms on March 21, 2025.

The film “follows a single mother Nour and her son. Nour makes a living from smuggling exotic animals and illicit products. Wishing to get her son out of the city and offer him a better future, she designs and develops a mobile app that connects clients and marabouts. It’s a success, but a patient’s consultation turns into a tragedy and Nour has to face a wave of violence that could cost her and her son their lives.”

Golshifteh Farahani stars as Nour. Amine Zariouhi, Denis Lavant, Alexis Manenti, Karim Belkhadra, and Issaka Sawadogo also star.

The film, which premiered last year at SXSW,...

Malaysian director Woo Ming Jin’s local horror Indera will open the Malaysia International Film Festival (Miffest), which will be closed by two Hong Kong features, Ho Miu Ki’s Love Lies and Nick Cheung’s Peg O’ My Heart.

The 7th edition of Miffest will take place in Malaysia’s capital of Kuala Lumpur from July 21-28. It will pay tribute to Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda and celebrated Indonesian actress Christine Hakim with lifetime achievement awards, as well as honour Hong Kong actor-director Cheung with an award for excellent achievement in film.

In a press conference held yesterday (June...

Exclusive: MPI Media Group has acquired North American distribution rights for Saïd Belktibia’s French thriller Hood Witch starring Golshifteh Farahani and Denis Lavant.

The Chicago-based company announced the acquisition on the eve of the film’s screening at horror-focused The Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans this weekend, following a buzzy world premiere at SXSW.

MPI will release the movie via its genre subsidiary Dark Sky Films in late fall 2024.

Iranian and French acting star Farahani plays a single mother who makes a living from smuggling exotic animals and illicit products such as birds of prey, venom and rare roots.

In a bid to get her son out of the city and offer him a better future, she designs and develops a mobile app that connects clients and marabouts.

It is a success but a patient’s consultation turns into a tragedy and...

The Overlook Film Fest 2024 edition, taking place April 4 – April 7 in New Orleans, Louisiana, just announced even more additions to their already packed lineup, including the Nicolas Cage-starring creature feature Arcadian.

“With the full scope of this year’s lineup, we’re thrilled to be able to recognize all of the many forms horror can take,” said Lisa Carbonari, festival director of The Overlook Film Festival. “We’re diving headfirst into the dark and twisted, through the films, immersive presentations, interactive exhibits, themed parties and even sensory experiences. We can’t wait to get together with our fellow horror-lovers and celebrate all of the different ways we enjoy being scared.”

The new additions to the lineup bring the festival total to 52 films (28 features and 24 shorts) from 11 countries, as well as four live presentations, six immersive experiences and six special events.

While you can read up on the previously announced lineup here,...

Saïd Belktibia's propulsive thriller Hood Witch is a mother's nightmare in constant motion. The French-Iranian production takes cues from Netflix's 2022 stunner Athena, which features Belktibia's performance as Frère Saïd, in the way momentum rolls downhill and rarely stops advancing. It's a stalk-and-chase flick that provides few breaks as the plot thickens, wholly immersed in the hurdle forward. Belktibia's film, which he dedicates to his mother in a touching display of affection, is critical of how society fails women who dare reject male-dominated norms. Hood Witch's modern recreation of witch trials through social media is an exceptional concept, but proves less and less poignant as scenes bleed into an exhausting marathon with wobbly legs.

A trafficker of rare animals finds herself in the crosshairs of a literal witch hunt when a young boy plummets to his death following a visit in Saïd Belktibia’s Hood Witch, celebrating its international premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. When we meet Nour, a powerful Golshifteh Farahani proving once again that she is a force to be reckoned with, the image is almost comical. A woman going through security at an airport is stopped for a check, only to discover that she is literally crawling with tiny rare animals strapped to her clothes. Nour is an entrepreneur, she provides the rare animals that local mystics and witches need to complete their spells, which are relied upon by many in the close-knit Muslim community...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

This article appears in the SXSW 2024 issue of Den of Geek magazine. Check out all of our SXSW coverage here.

“A revenge ghost story with elements of a monster movie” is how Irish helmer Damian McCarthy describes his latest chiller, which is set to bring “plenty of scares and a few a few laughs” to SXSW’s late-night line-up. A supernatural horror centered around spooky trinkets, Oddity follows a blind medium (You Are Not My Mother’s Carolyn Bracken) as she uncovers the truth behind her twin sister’s death with the help of a terrifying wooden mannequin.

“She collects a lot of haunted items—she can pick up an object and tell you everything about it,” explains McCarthy, the writer/director of 2020’s psychological thriller Caveat and celebrated horror short He Dies at the End. Not only does one of these objects—the aforementioned “wooden man”—help her to catch her sister’s killer,...

Founded in 2012, Paris-based WTFilms, run by Gregory Chambet and Dimitri Stephanides, has built a strong reputation as a sales agent for break-out genre pics and has recently diversified into production, to access hit projects. As competition ramps up for more ambitious projects with strong theatrical potential, Chambet decided to move to Los Angeles in mid-2023, while Stephanides remains based in Paris.

“At WTFilms, we aim to continue to work on both sides of the Atlantic,” explains Chambet. “In the current market it’s important to invest in projects by talented directors, with innovative concepts, budgeted above $5 million. It makes sense for me to be based here because we work a lot with partners here and L.A. is a key talent hub. We’re on the lookout for talent from all around the world. There are really exciting genre directors popping up everywhere – in North America and also in Latin America and Asia.

March fest announces multiple competition sections.

SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.

Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.

Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...

This year’s SXSW Film Festival, taking place in Austin, TX, just unveiled their lineup, and what a massive year for horror.

The 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival’s Opening Night TV Premiere is the highly anticipated Netflix series 3 Body Problem created, executive produced and written by Emmy Award winners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss and Emmy Award nominee Alexander Woo. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg for what’s in store.

The fest unveiled its Midnight lineup, which includes the Samara Weaving-starring Azrael. Elsewhere, look for Neon’s highly anticipated Cuckoo set to make its premiere.

Read on for the genre titles included in SXSW 2024’s lineup, and stay tuned for additional programming announcements.

Narrative Spotlight

Unforgettable features receiving their World, North American, or U.S. premieres.

Cuckoo (Germany)

Director/Screenwriter: Tilman Singer, Producers: Markus Halberschmidt, Josh Rosenbaum, Maria Tsigka, Ken Kao, Thor Bradwell, Ben Rimmer...

The seventeenth edition of MotelX in Lisbon, Portugal, has come and gone. For one week festival attendees got some of the best that the festival circuit has to offer. Now that things have calmed down it is time to share with everyone the winners from this year's event. Danish film Superposition, from Karoline Lyngbye, was awarded The Méliès d’argent Award for Best European Feature Film. The creative couple Stine and Teit and their young son Nemo leave their urban life in Copenhagen behind in favour of an isolated forest in Sweden, where they hope to find themselves as individuals. Hood Witch, by French director Saïd Belktibia was given an honorable mention... A woman earns a living by smuggling exotic animals and illegal goods, developing...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Deadline has shared the above first-look image from Hood Witch, an upcoming horror-thriller about a mobile app gone wrong that marks the debut of French filmmaker Saïd Belktibia.

The film is said to have a “social and feminist edge.”

Deadline details, “Golshifteh Farahani (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No) plays a woman who makes a living smuggling exotic animals and illicit products.

“She branches out with the creation of a mobile App that connects clients with mystical marabout healers, but when a user’s consultation takes a tragic turn she finds her facing a violent backlash that could cost her and her son their lives.”

Denis Lavant also stars in Hood Witch.

Paris-based WTFilms has acquired international sales rights.

The post ‘Hood Witch’ – French Horror Movie Connects App Users With Mystical Healers appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Exclusive: Paris-based WTFilms has acquired international sales rights for thriller Hood Witch, the debut film of rising French director Saïd Belktibia, starring Golshifteh Farahani and Denis Lavant.

Iranian-French actress and activist Farahani (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No) plays a woman who makes a living smuggling exotic animals and illicit products.

She branches out with the creation of a mobile App that connects clients with mystical marabout healers, but when a user’s consultation takes a tragic turn she finds her facing a violent backlash that could cost her and her son their lives.

The thriller is produced by Iconoclast and Les Misérables director Lady Ly’s Lyly Films.

Iconoclast’s recent credits include Romain Gavras’s Netflix original Athena, which debuted in Venice last year. The company is in Cannes this year as a producer on the Midnight Screening title The King Of Algiers.

“Saïd Belktibia is...

Iconoclast, the international production group behind Romain Gavras’ Venice competition film “Athena,” is setting a wide-ranging slate of projects with emerging filmmakers from different audiovisual fields, including Leo Berne from the artists collective Megaforce, Elias Belkeddar and Said Belktibia from the collective Kourtrajmé. The company is also producing the next projects of Harmony Korine and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, among others.

In a rare interview, Nicolas Lhermitte, who co-founded Iconoclast with Mourad Belkeddar and Charles-Marie Anthonioz, says the company has emerged from the pandemic with a record number of developed projects. “We took the opportunity during the pandemic to develop a lot of projects, and today we have around 30 projects in the pipeline, spanning films and series that are set up at our studios in France, the U.S. and Germany,” says Lhermitte, who adds that Iconoclast aspired to “accompany multi-disciplinary artists to venture from one field to another, films, TV series,...