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Known for a filmography heavy into psychological thriller portraits with noir and crime element trimmings, the French-German filmmaker saw his second and third features films land in the Palme d’Or competition back with With a Friend Like Harry… (2000) and Lemming (2005), but it’s been two long decades for Dominik Moll to finally make his return this time with Dossier 137 (aka Case 137). What might have helped the filmmaker is that his last film The Night of the 12th (read ★★★ review) played extremely well in the Cannes Premiere section in 2022 — the film would nab six César Awards including Best Picture.…...

French-German filmmaker Dominik Moll returned to the Cannes Competition on Thursday with police drama Dossier 137, which received a very enthusiastic eight-minute ovation — where the audience actually was standing.

The applause might have continued, but the people were ushered out of the theater just before the 12-minute mark so it could be cleared for the next screening.

Dominik Moll’s competition film ‘Dossier 137’, a thrilling examination of police investigating corrupt riot officers, received a tremendously enthusiastic 8 minute standing ovation in #Cannes2025 pic.twitter.com/gxq8lD4U5o

— Deadline (@Deadline) May 15, 2025

The film stars Léa Drucker as a police officer working for Internal Affairs who is assigned to a case involving a young man severely wounded during a tense and chaotic demonstration in Paris. While she finds no evidence of illegitimate police violence, the case takes a personal turn when she discovers the victim is from her hometown.

In her review for Deadline,...

Sometimes, the stacks of paper on Inspector Bertrand’s desk pile up so perilously that it look as if she is about to disappear under an avalanche of files; her computer screen is like a retaining wall, with the thin, ferrety inspector burrowed in behind it. Stéphanie Bertrand’s (Léa Drucker) job, which she performs with dogged rigor, is to investigate complaints against police officers. In Dominik Moll’s Dossier 137, we join her in the wake of the 2018 gilets jaunes demonstrations, when 300,000 rural workers, mostly newbies to the rough and tumble of street politics, surged into Paris. Many went home wounded. Bertrand’s files are piling up.

French-German director Moll has made his considerable name with psychological stealth thrillers, peopled with eccentrics and spiced with peculiar motifs like the persistent rodent in Lemming (2005), the raw eggs quaffed by Sergi Lopez in Harry, He’s Here to Help (2000) or the...

Hero Complex: Moll Refreshes Detective Procedural with Cat’s Paw Narrative

With his early naughts and grisly disappearance thriller Only the Animals being a bit more overt with the criminal element, for his seventh feature film, Belgian filmmaker Dominik Moll sidesteps the strictly sinister Huis clos narrative to put forth something that still has the conventional the aftermath of a crime scene but this is equal parts about the down time and desk job administrative type tasks. With characters who wear their warts and all in public view, La nuit du 12 (The Night of the 12th) deconstructs the hero complex and it makes for an restrained, easy-to-watch, void of over-dramatization and tonally more cerebral (with a light touch of humor) brand of crime film that is more of a how do we do this?…...

Crispin Glover, Sunnyi Melles, Fionnula Flanagan star in the film.

LevelK has boarded world sales on Dutch drama Mr. K starring Crispin Glover, which has wrapped filming and is now in post-production.

Back To The Future star Glover plays the eponymous character, a travelling magician who finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of the hotel he just slept in. His attempts to get out only entangle him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.

LevelK has released a first look at the film, above. Paradiso will release the title in Belgium.

Written and directed by Tallulah Schwab,...

German-born French director Moll’s previous features include Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

The Match Factory is introducing Dominik Moll’s new feature Seules Les Bêtes, an adaptation of the 2017 novel by French author Colin Niel, to Afm buyers this week.

Moll is in development on the project, which will star Denis Ménochet, Damien Bonnard, Laure Calamy and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. The film marks a continuation of The Match Factory’s successful collaboration with German production outfit Razor Film, with whom it partnered on Waltz With Bashir, Wadjda and Looking for Oum Kulthum, and...

German-born French director Moll’s previous features include Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

The Match Factory is introducing Dominik Moll’s new feature Seules Les Bêtes, an adaptation of the 2017 novel by French author Colin Niel, to Afm buyers this week.

Moll is in development on the project, which will star Denis Ménochet, Damien Bonnard, Laure Calamy and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. The film marks a continuation of The Match Factory’s successful collaboration with German production outfit Razor Film, with whom it partnered on Waltz With Bashir, Wadjda and Looking for Oum Kulthum, and...

Rolling off “Versailles” and “Thanksgiving,” which is competing at Series Mania in Lille, Newen-owned Capa Drama is developing a raft of internationally-driven series with French and U.S. partners, including “The 10 O’Clock People” and “L’Infiltré.”

Headed by Claude Chelli, Capa Drama has partnered up with U.S. company Fabrik Entertainment to co-develop “The 10 O’Clock People,” a series adapted from a short novel by Stephen King which was published in the Nightmares & Dreamscapes collection. The story revolves around a Boston bank employee who discovers that many people, including some powerful ones, are inhuman monsters disguised as people. Pearson finds allies who, like him, have the ability to see these creatures through their disguises and forms a new resistance group. The series will shoot in English and is being developed by Arnaud Figaret and Aude Albano at Capa Drama.

Albano described “The 10 O’Clock People” as a “urban noir...

New films from Lee Tamahori and Anne Zohra Berrached also added.

The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has completed the line-up of its Competiton programme, of which 18 out of 23 will vye for the Golden and Silver Bears. A total of 19 titles of the films are world premieres.

Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq will receive its international premiere as part of the strand, but will play out of competition.

The film stars Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris and Wesley Snipes, and is a modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.

Germany’s Anne Zohra Berrached, who premiered Two Mothers at the Berlinale’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2013, returns with 24 Weeks (24 Wochen). The film centres on the dilemma faced by a woman who is already six months pregnant when she learns that her unborn child will have Down‘s syndrome as well as a serious heart defect...

News From the Planet Mars

Director: Dominik Moll

Writers: Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand

Cesar award winner Dominik Moll is back with his fifth film, News From the Planet Mars. Twice competing for the Palme d’Or (with his most notable work With a Friend Like Harry in 2005, and with the underrated Lemming in 2005), Moll tends to take five or six years between projects, with his adaptation of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ 1796 Gothic novel The Monk treated to an underwhelming response in 2011 despite starring Vincent Cassel. Reuniting with his regular scribe Gilles Marchand, Moll tries his hand at existential comedy with a tale about a stressed out dad and divorcé working as an executive of an It company and headed towards a mid-life crisis, a situation insisted by the arrival of a new, insane co-worker.

Cast: Francois Damiens, Veerle Baetens, Lea Drucker, Vincent Macaigne, Michel Aumont

Production Co./Producers: Diaphana Films’ Michel Saint-Jean,...

'Son of Saul': Géza Röhrig in the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards' Best Foreign Language Film winner. Charlotte Rampling, Michael Fassbender: Los Angeles Film Critics Awards 2015 The Los Angeles Film Critics Association's 2015 winners were announced on Sunday, Dec. 6. Lafca is one of the two most influential critics groups – i.e., those whose decisions get at least some mainstream media mileage – in the United States. The other one is the much older New York Film Critics Circle, followed by the National Society of Film Critics. Five-decade movie veteran Charlotte Rampling,[1] who'll turn 70 next Feb. 5, was one of the day's big winners. Besides being selected Best Actress by the Los Angeles Film Critics for her performance in 45 Years, Rampling was also the 2015 Boston Society of Film Critics' pick. Earlier this year, Andrew Haigh's marital drama costarring Tom Courtenay (Doctor Zhivago, The Dresser) earned her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival.

After premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Belgian auteur Fabrice du Welz’s excellent fourth feature Alleluia went on to play in the esteemed Vanguard lineup in the Toronto International Film Festival before nabbing Best Actor and Actress awards at Fantastic Fest for superb performances from Laurent Lucas and Lola Duenas. Although this didn’t translate into notable box office profit for Us distributor Music Box Films (released in mid-July for a limited theatrical run, the title didn’t crack ten grand in its paltry five week run), du Welz’s beautiful cult-classic in the making will eventually secure a greater following. A recent Blu-ray re-release of Criterion Collection’s presentation of the 1969 Leonard Kastle film, The Honeymoon Killers, based on the same romantic killing spree, should funnel some attention to it, as well as du Welz’s break into English language in 2016 with his next title.

In the Mood For Love: Du Welz Returns With Gloriously Dark Rendering of Insatiable Passion

His first film since 2008’s underappreciated Vinyan, Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz debuts the second installment in his proposed Ardennes trilogy, Alleluia. His 2004 directorial debut, Calvaire (aka The Ordeal) depicted a rather hellacious account of a singer whose car breaks down in the middle of the woods, stranding him in the midst of a very strange and terrifying rural community. Here, Du Welz bases his latest madness on the true account of serial killing couple Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, a case that famously inspired the 1969 film The Honeymoon Killers and 1996’s Deep Crimson, amongst others. But Du Welz hardly unveils a simple account of unhinged, obsessive love. His is a demonic hymnal of passion, a darkly droll exercise in the delusory notion of love as an unhealthy obsession told with aggressive flourish. But...

A female director will open the festival for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Standing Tall (La Tête Haute), a film by French director Emmanuelle Bercot, is to open the 68th Cannes Film Festival on May 13.

It marks the first time a film by a female director has opened the festival since Diane Kurys’ A Man in Love in 1987.

Standing Tall stars Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel, Sara Forestier and Rod Paradot, who plays the main character, juvenile delinquent Malony, following his upbringing from childhood to adulthood, as a children’s judge and social worker try to save him.

It was filmed in the Nord-Pas de Calais, Rhône-Alpes and Paris.

Surprising

“The choice of this film may seem surprising, given the rules generally applied to the Festival de Cannes opening ceremony,” said Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the festival.

This reference to a “surprising” choice likely refers to the recent run of star-powered openers including Woody Allen’s [link...

A female director will open the festival for the first time in nearly 30 years.

La Tête Haute (Standing Tall), a film by French director Emmanuelle Bercot, is to open the 68th Cannes Film Festival on May 13.

It marks the first time a film by a female director has opened the festival since Diane Kurys’ A Man in Love in 1987.

La Tête Haute stars Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel, Sara Forestier and Rod Paradot, who plays the main character, juvenile delinquent Malony, following his upbringing from childhood to adulthood, as a children’s judge and social worker try to save him.

It was filmed in the Nord-Pas de Calais, Rhône-Alpes and Paris.

“The choice of this film may seem surprising, given the rules generally applied to the Festival de Cannes opening ceremony,” said Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the festival.

This reference to a “surprising” choice could refer to the recent run of star-powered openers including Woody Allen’s [link...

German born, French filmmaker Dominik Moll has blasted off onto his fifth feature film, News from Planet Mars. Starring François Damiens (Tip Top), Vincent Macaigne and Léa Drucker, Cineuropa’s Fabien Lemercier reports shooting has begun on the mostly Paris-based project and will continue filming into May. Diaphana Films’ Michel Saint-Jean is producing.

Gist: Co-written by Gilles Marchand and Moll, Philippe Mars (François Damiens) is a reasonable man in an unreasonable world. He’s trying to be a good father, a kind ex-husband, a nice colleague, an understanding sibling… But the planets have not been exactly aligned in his favor lately. With his son turning into a hardcore vegan, his daughter into a pathological overachiever and his sister selling oversized paintings of their naked parents, it seems to our ever-so prudent Philippe that everyone around him is starting to behave more and more erratically… When his colleague (who also accidentally...

Catherine Deneuve: César Award Besst Actress Record-Tier (photo: Catherine Deneuve in 'In the Courtyard / Dans la cour') (See previous post: "Kristen Stewart and Catherine Deneuve Make César Award History.") Catherine Deneuve has received 12 Best Actress César nominations to date. Deneuve's nods were for the following movies (year of film's release): Pierre Salvadori's In the Courtyard / Dans la Cour (2014). Emmanuelle Bercot's On My Way / Elle s'en va (2013). François Ozon's Potiche (2010). Nicole Garcia's Place Vendôme (1998). André Téchiné's Thieves / Les voleurs (1996). André Téchiné's My Favorite Season / Ma saison préférée (1993). Régis Wargnier's Indochine (1992). François Dupeyron's Strange Place for an Encounter / Drôle d'endroit pour une rencontre (1988). Jean-Pierre Mocky's Agent trouble (1987). André Téchiné's Hotel America / Hôtel des Amériques (1981). François Truffaut's The Last Metro / Le dernier métro (1980). Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Le sauvage (1975). Additionally, Catherine Deneuve was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category...

Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming director Dominik Moll has come aboard to helm the The Tunnel, the Franco-British adaptation of Scandinavian series The Bridge. Shooting starts this month on the Sky Atlantic/Canal Plus co-production from Kudos Film and TV and Shine France Films in association with Filmlance. As I reported last week, the 10-part drama stars Harry Potter actress Clémence Poésy and Game Of Thrones‘ Stephen Dillane as detectives investigating the death of a French politician who are forced into an uneasy partnership as they seek out a politically-motivated serial killer. Also joining the cast are Game Of Thrones‘ Joseph Mawle, Da Vinci’s Demons‘ Tom Bateman, Dancing On The Edge and Merlin‘s Angel Coulby, Silent Witness‘ Tobi Bakare, French actors Jeanne Balibar, Thibault de Montalembert and Mathieu Carrièrre and British actor Jack Lowden. The second episode will also feature Upstairs Downstairs‘ Keeley Hawes and veteran British actress Liz Smith.

This is the Pure Movies review of The Monk, directed by Dominik Moll and starring Vincent Cassel, Déborah François, Joséphine Japy and Sergi López. Written by award-winning producer and director Garth Twa, exclusively for Pure Movies. Lightning rents the black sky. A castle, er, monastery sits high and forbidding on a distant hill. Eddies swirl in angry, bloated streams; foundlings are dangled. Crows screech from turrets; gargoyles loom with hollow mouths. The Monk, the new film by Dominik Moll (Lemming; Harry, He’s Here To Help) has all the tropes of a sturdy diabolic horror film: thrashings of Hammer gothic, buckets of Roger Corman Grand Guignol, and also—as a bonus, because it’s French—nods to Bosch, Breugel, Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc and Jodorowsky’s daylight surrealism.

The French moviemaker Dominik Moll has followed his admirable Hitchcockian thriller Harry, He's Here to Help and the impressive Pinteresque psychological drama Lemming, with a respectful version of Matthew G Lewis's notorious 1796 gothic drama about a 16th-century Spanish monk led astray by an evil emissary and doing a deal with Satan himself. Vincent Cassel, looking like a priest out of a Zurbarán painting, is a formidable presence, and the picture is atmospherically lit by Patrick Blossier, but it's a rather dull offering – tasteful horror for the carriage trade.

HorrorPeriod and historicalDramaVincent CasselPhilip French

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Vincent Cassel brings his unsmiling intensity to Matthew Lewis's classic errant 18th-century monk

Dominik Moll is the German-born film-maker who created the elegant noir suspense movies Lemming (2005) and Harry, He's Here to Help (2000) – now he has adapted The Monk, by Matthew Lewis, the classic English gothic novel of the 18th century. It stars Vincent Cassel as Friar Ambrosio, a charismatic monk tempted by Satan and the lures of the flesh. With an exclamatory orchestral score by Alberto Iglesias, this feverishly intense movie has a tablespoon of 1970s art-porn; the work of Walerian Borowczyk comes to mind, and Moll could well be a fan of The Omen. Cassel brings to the leading role his accustomed unsmiling intensity, as he comes to terms with the arrival of a strange new monk who wears an eerie face mask after being horribly disfigured in a fire. It is not a story of great depth or passion,...

Dominik Moll has not been prolific, The Monk (2011) being only his fourth feature film. But on the strength of the three films widely seen, there is little doubt that he is one of the most inventive of filmmakers and among the greatest storytellers to have come out of world cinema. Moll is primarily known for two ingenious thrillers – With a Friend like Harry (2000) and Lemming (2005). Both these films take suspense to a new high in as much they have us gripped from start to finish without our guessing till the very end the direction the narrative is likely to take.

Lemming, for instance, begins bafflingly with a young couple discovering that their kitchen drain is clogged. When the husband opens up the drain, he discovers a Lemming (a Scandinavian rodent believed by Malthusians to commit mass suicide). Both these films include the motifs of murder but setting Moll apart from...

The Monk (Le Moine)

Directed by Dominik Moll

Written by Dominik Moll and Anne-Louise Trividic, from the novel by Matthew Lewis

France, 2011

Dominik Moll’s The Monk is so redolent with Gothic gloom, overweening piety and suppressed lust that it’s almost in danger of self-combusting. It’s held together by a towering performance from Vincent Cassel, who recently played French gangster Jacques Mesrine, and seems to exude menace without even trying.

From the moment a baby is left to be pecked by crows outside a Capuchin monastery in Spain, you know we’re in very dark territory. Despite an ominous birthmark on his shoulder, the unfortunate boy is taken in and raised by the monks. Ambrosio grows up to be a man of unimpeachable virtue and religious zeal and a beacon of hope for worshippers like beautiful young Antonia (Joséphine Japy). But things start to unravel when Ambrosio ignores...

French-Spanish production “The Monk” is the third feature from writer director Dominik Moll (“Harry, He’s Here To Help”, “Lemming”), and is an adaptation of the 1796 novel by Matthew Lewis, itself renowned as being one of the key texts of gothic literature. Having been adapted for the screen back in 1972 by Ado Kyrou (with a script co-written by Luis Buñuel), the book has proved hugely influential over the years, not to mention controversial, being banned for its risqué content and dealing with a variety sacrilegious themes. Given this, it’s hard to imagine a better choice of actor for the lead role than charismatic madman Vincent Cassel, whose mere presence in this kind of genre fare is immediately enough to elevate to being a film of considerable interest. Cassel plays Ambrosia, a monk who has spent his whole life in the monastery after being found on its steps as a baby,...

The 55th edition of the London Film Festival (Lff) starts tomorrow, October 12th, and runs until the 22nd. This year the festival will screen 204 features and 110 shorts from 55 different countries. A selection of films will compete for the festival’s 4 main prizes: the Best Film Award, The Grierson Award for Best Documentary, Best British Newcomer and The Sutherland Award (for most imaginative and original first feature). In addition, the British Film Institute will present its highest honour, BFI Fellowships, to actor Ralph Fiennes and director David Cronenberg, the first Canadian ever to receive the fellowship.

The festival comprises nine different sections, from big budget films by well-known directors, to first features, encompassing innovative new films from all over the world. There is a section devoted to European cinema, and special sections for British and French cinema. There are also separate sections devoted to shorts, experimental films, and classic films that have recently been restored.

The double bill I’m most looking forward to features Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Shannon, who I first saw in the brilliant Shotgun Stories (2007). Take Shelter is his second collaboration with writer/director Jeff Nichols and finds Shannon in dark territory again as a man whose psychological problems put him at odds with his small-town community.

Shannon also plays the husband of Linda Cardellini’s stressed-out combat veteran in Return, a film about the pressures of war on those left at home. The Missing Person showed that Shannon can temper his intensity with a wonderfully dry sense of humour and he definitely has the talent to be a leading man and not just an accomplished supporting player.

Michael Fassbender’s A Dangerous Method and Shame have already been reviewed during the recent Toronto International Film Festival, though I am keen to see to both them. Do we need to talk about Kevin,...

A stylish and sexy French techno-thriller from the creative partnership behind “Lemming” and “Harry, He’s Here To Help”, Black Heaven is released on DVD by Arrow Films on 5th September 2011. We have 3 copies of the DVD to give away to our readers.

Gilles Marchand (Who Killed Bambi?) directs from a script co-written with his regular collaborator and fellow director Dominik Moll (Lemming; Harry, He’s Here To Help) to produce a movie that has been described as “inventive” (Variety), “intelligent… [and] riveting” (Hollywood Reporter).

For your chance of winning a copy of the DVD all you need to do is email contest@obsessedwithfilm.com with the e-mail header Black Heaven. Make sure you leave your full name and address and please only enter if you are 18 or over. Winners will be notified in September.

I’ve often struggled with the question of how to find meaning in my Flickchart rankings. I obsessively compile them and look over them repeatedly, but I also want to know how to use them to learn more about my own movie-watching tendencies.

Toward that end, on my own blog, I’ve begun a project to examine my top ten films using certain filters. Not necessarily the filters Flickchart makes available, such as my favorite comedies of all time or my favorite horror films of all time, though I will probably do those eventually as well. What I really want to do is choose a category that interests me, then drill on down through my rankings to see the first ten that satisfy the criteria of that category. Some of these may be excessively quirky categories — I won’t give any examples here, in order to keep the element of...

This has admittedly been online for a while, but if it's passed you by so far, and with its French release imminent, we thought we'd draw your attention to this trailer for The Monk, starring Vincent Cassel and directed by Dominik Moll. There's a poster too.It's classy-looking stuff from the writer/director of Harry, He's Here To Help and Lemming, and if the lack of subtitles leaves you scratching your head, you should at least be able to glean some of what you need to know from the fact that it's based on the infamous Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis.*In the book, written in the 18th century when its author was just 20, Cassel's character is Ambrosio, who starts on a tragic downward spiral when he's seduced by a woman who he thinks is another monk. Cue black magic, murder, rape, satanism, the Spanish Inquisition and being thrown into dark pits,...

I am trying to think if there has been a truly great monastic thriller - or even a good one, it's not exactly a bustling genre - since 1986's The Name Of The Rose and, frankly, I'm drawing a blank. Director Dominik Moll (Lemming) is hoping to break that streak with The Monk.Adapted from Matthew G. Lewis' 1796 cult gothic novel, The Monk follows the tragic destiny of Brother Ambrosio in 17th century Catholic Spain. Abandoned at birth at the gates of a Capuchin monastery, Ambrosio was raised by the friars. Today, he has grown into a preacher admired far and wide for his fervor. Feared, though, for his righteousness, he is believed to be immune from temptation. The arrival of a mysterious apprentice...

Only a few hours ago I turned in my application for the 64th Cannes Film Festival and now Cedric Succivalli of Ics Film lets us know tomorrow will see the announcement of the opening night film.

Last year Ridley Scott's Robin Hood opened the fest with a bit of a thud and here's a list of the films that opened the fest in recent years: 2010 - Robin Hood (dir. Ridley Scott) 2009 - Up (dir. Pete Docter and Bob Peterson) 2008 - Blindness (dir. Fernando Meirelles) 2007 - My Blueberry Nights (dir. Wong Kar-wai) 2006 - The Da Vinci Code (dir. Ron Howard) 2005 - Lemming (dir. Dominik Moll) 2004 - Bad Education (dir. Pedro Almodovar) 2003 - Fanfan la Tulipe (dir. Gerard Krawczyk) 2002 - Hollywood Ending (dir. Woody Allen) 2001 - Moulin Rouge (dir. Baz Luhrmann) So what will this year's opening film be?

I'm sure your instant reaction would be to say Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life,...

#44. The Monk Director: Dominik MollProducers: Alvaro Longoria and Michel Saint-JeanDistributor: Rights Available. The Gist: An adaptation of classic from Mathew Gregory Lewis published in 1796, the story concerns Capucin Ambrosio (Cassel) - a pious, well-respected monk in Spain - and his violent downfall. He is undone by carnal lust for his pupil, a woman disguised as a monk (Matilda), who tempts him to transgress, and, once satisfied by her, is overcome with desire for the innocent Antonia. Using magic spells Matilda aids him in seducing Antonia, whom he later rapes and kills. Matilda is eventually revealed as an instrument of Satan in female form, who has orchestrated Ambrosio's downfall from the start.....(more) Cast: Vincent Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin and Déborah François List Worthy Reasons...: I consider myself a huge fan of Dominik Moll - his last pair of films in With a Friend Like Harry (2000) and Lemming (2005) weren't on many...

I recently had the pleasure of seeing a Polanski film in utter innocence. As the result of a rare set of circumstances, I found myself in the wrong cinema in front of a film which had a very restricted title sequence, so that I knew the title of the film from the beginning, but didn’t learn the director’s name until the end. I had of course heard that Polanski had a new film out, but not feeling particularly interested in the film’s political theme, I had forgotten about it. After the shock of realising that I was in the wrong cinema, I assumed that the film I was about to see was most likely a product of Hollywood: I was sitting in a multiplex with a relatively large audience, after all. The film’s European title, “The Ghost,” gives much less away than the American title, “The Ghost Writer,...

In the interim, filmmaker Gilles Marchand stuck to his writing work supplying screenplays such as Lemming and Feux rouges for Dominik Moll and Cédric Kahn, but now wearing the director hat, Marchand will be returning to Cannes for the first time since 2003's Who Killed Bambi? - In the interim, filmmaker Gilles Marchand stuck to his writing work supplying screenplays such as Lemming and Feux rouges for Dominik Moll and Cédric Kahn, but now wearing the director hat, Marchand will be returning to Cannes for the first time since 2003's Who Killed Bambi? With Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet in the lead, and also starring Louise Bourgoin (La fille de Monaco) and Melvil Poupaud (Le refuge), Black Heaven, which receives a Midnight Screening slot and is among my tops in Most Anticipated Films list, merges real life and animation, much like how Marchand's scripted L'Avion merged fantasy with real-life elements.

In the interim, filmmaker Gilles Marchand stuck to his writing work supplying screenplays such as Lemming and Feux rouges for Dominik Moll and Cédric Kahn, but now wearing the director hat, Marchand will be returning to Cannes for the first time since 2003's Who Killed Bambi? With Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet in the lead, and also starring Louise Bourgoin (La fille de Monaco) and Melvil Poupaud (Le refuge), Black Heaven, which receives a Midnight Screening slot and is among my tops in Most Anticipated Films list, merges real life and animation, much like how Marchand's scripted L'Avion merged fantasy with real-life elements. L'autre monde (Black Heaven) is co-written by Marchand and Dominik Moll, and is a coming-of-age story about a teenager seduced by the unlimited possibilities of the dark, virtual world of online gaming. Set during the Summer in the south of France. Gaspard (Leprince-Ringuet) divides his time between his friends and his girlfriend,...

The filmmaker behind 2005's Lemming is finally getting back into the director's chair. Dominik Moll announced his intentions midway last year, but the good news is he'll begin lensing this month in Spain up until July on The Monk or Le Moine. Judging by the cast, this should be a Franco-Spanish film with Vincent Cassel toplining alongside Déborah François, Géraldine Chaplin and Sergi López who'll be re-teaming with the director again... - The filmmaker behind 2005's Lemming is finally getting back into the director's chair. Dominik Moll announced his intentions midway last year, but the good news is he'll begin lensing this month in Spain up until July on The Monk or Le Moine. Judging by the cast, this should be a Franco-Spanish film with Vincent Cassel toplining alongside Déborah François, Géraldine Chaplin and Sergi López who'll be re-teaming with the director again,...

• With a Friend Like Harry and Lemming feel like ages ago, so any news on filmmaker Dominik Moll for this detail hungry cinephile is good news. There is a brief mention today that the under-appreciated filmmaker received support called "an advance on receipts" from France's committee of the National Film Centre (Cnc) and was one of six screenplays to get what I imagine is some Euros (Jacques Doillon’s Aux Quatre Vents, Benoit Jacquot’s Hypnose, Philippe Faucon’s Kamikaze, L’oiseau by Yves Caumon and Juan José Lozano’s Impunité were the others). French production house Diaphana will be producing The Monk (La Moine) and that's about all the info we have right now. I'd like to see Laurent Lucas make it a third participation with the filmmaker who up to date only directed four films. He most recently penned for L’Autre monde for helmer Gilles Marchand.

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Here's the UK Quad for Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" Synopsis Charlotte Gainsbourg ("I'm Not There"; "21 Grams"; "Lemming") and Willem Dafoe ("Spider-man"; "The Last Temptation Of Christ") star as a grieving couple who retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping a return to Eden will repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse. UK release date: 24 July 2009 www.antichristthemovie.com...

• Continuing on yesterday’s cue, Indie Queens and Foreign Femme Fatales top 10 list demonstrates an appreciation for performance, grace, style, facial symmetry and once again that je ne sais quoi factor. This year’s compilation is a mix of 2006’s old school – which’ve once again proved their weight in gold and we also witnessed a new generation of leading ladies make their marks. The sum is a healthy representation of world inhabitants and some sizzling performances. 10. Abbie Cornish2006: Unless you happen to live in the Aussieland sunbelt, prior to 04’ no one heard of the actress. Cornish’s international claim to fame (Somersault) was finally released stateside in 06’ and folks were whip lashed by her with additional stints in A Good Year and junkie-friendly vehicle of Candy.2007: The next Watts/Kidman to come out of Australia will next appear in The Golden Age and Kimberly Peirce's

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• Always important in a festival are the guests. For a first year, the festival team have managed to bring a mix of filmmakers and actors (hailing as far as Sweden) to help promote their movies and the festival. Look for upcoming interviews with some of these fine folks within the next couple of weeks. Michael Caton Jones at the fest with genocide drama Shooting Dogs Actor & first time director D.B. Sweeney in town with Dirt Nap Crazy film Kill your Darlings being repped: Swedenish filmmaker Björne Larson on the right. Johan Sandstrom producer of Kill your Darlings Cast of Kill your Darlings: actor Greg Germann (Ally McBeal) Cast of Kill your Darlings: Andreas Wilson (from the Danish film Evil) Director Anne Feinsilber and producer Carine Leblanc at the fest with the excellent: Requiem for Billy the Kid Blinded by the beautiful weather...actor Laurent Lucas here with 2 films

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CANNES -- So an online betting site has established Dominik Moll's Lemming, the opening-night film of the 2005 Festival de Cannes, as a 2-to-1 favorite to win the Palme d'Or. If it does, then the jury must develop a taste for rodents stuck in drainpipes, a sudden suicide, a ghostly possession and a flying minicamera that lets you spy on your boss' bedroom activities. At times suspenseful and evocative but more often just silly, Lemming does possess a mordant humor as it watches characters spin out of control. But the payoff is slight, failing to live up to expectations created by its own richly developed sense of menace and abnormality lurking beneath the surface of ordinary life.

Moll, who made his Competition debut in 2000 with the quirky thriller With a Friend Like Harry, later acquired by Miramax, has star power in his two Charlottes -- Gainsbourg and Rampling. But away from the festival circuit, Lemming might play like second-rate Alfred Hitchcock or, more to the point, third-rate David Lynch.

Laurent Lucas, who starred in Harry, is Alain, a home automation engineer who comes up with gadgets like the flying webcam. This lets a homeowner keep tabs on his house via computer while he is away. Only the trouble all begins for Alain when he is right at home.

He and his wife, Benedicte (Gainsbourg), host a dinner for Alain's new boss, Richard Pollock (Andre Dussollier), and his wife, Alice (Rampling). First the kitchen sink gets clogged by a rodent trapped in the drainpipe. The rodent, it turns out later, is a lemming, which lives only in Scandinavia and should not be found in a French drain.

Then the Pollocks are extremely late. Their tardiness, Alice announces to stunned silence, is because her husband took more time than usual with one of his whores. Moments later, she empties her wine glass into Richard's face, and the evening is pretty much a disaster.

The next day, Alice drops by the office and tries to seduce Alain. She fails only just barely. The next day, she drops by Alain's home, gets Benedicte to invite her in and, after taking a nap, kills herself.

All very shocking. Only greater shocks come when the dead woman appears to take possession of Benedicte's body and Alain thinks he sees hundreds of lemmings in the house when he has in fact fallen asleep at the wheel of a car and got into an accident.

That an audience stays with this film -- or at least stays interested to see what will happen -- for as long as it does is a tribute to Moll and co-writer Gilles Marchand's sense of wit and a measured tone and style that suit the behavioral malfunctions.

Alas, the film relies too much on its shocks and fails to make the supernatural element at all convincing. The movie noticeably stalls toward the end of the second act so that the third-act skullduggery feels hopelessly contrived.

The actors do credible jobs in the four major roles. Lucas carries most of the weight as a character experiencing a total personality collapse. A man of modern technology and control, his Alain finds himself no longer certain who either he or his wife is.

Sound editor Gerard Hardy's highly selective, impressionistic soundtrack and David Sinclair Whitaker's music make major contributions to this stripped-down psychodrama. Jean-Marc Fabre's cinematography is clean and unobtrusive, and Michel Barthelemy's design emphasizes how a tasteful, well-lit suburban home can be its own nightmare.

LEMMING

Diaphana Films in association with France 3 Cinema

Credits:

Director: Dominik Moll

Screenwriters: Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand

Producer: Michel Saint-Jean

Director of photography: Jean-Marc Fabre

Production designer: Michel Barthelemy

Music: David Sinclair Whitaker

Costume designers: Virginie Montel, Isabelle Pannetier

Editor: Mike Fromentin

Cast:

Alain: Laurent Lucas

Benedicte: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Alice: Charlotte Rampling

Richard: Andre Dussollier

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 129 minutes...

North American films dominate this year's Festival de Cannes lineup announced Tuesday with 10 films from the United States, Canada and Mexico set to unspool, including seven In Competition. Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is among the 20 Competition titles along with French director Dominik Moll's Lemming, which is set for opening night. Also in Competition is Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's Sin City, David Cronenberg's History of Violence and Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. Moll's Lemming, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Laurent Lucas, Andre Dussollier and Charlotte Rampling, will unspool on opening night of the festival's 58th edition.