News

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?…...

Raft of sales for police procedural following Cannes Premiere debut.

Memento International has sold Dominik Moll’s The Night Of The 12th to a slew of territories, including the US and the UK, following its debut in Cannes’ Premiere section.

Film Movement has acquired the title in North America, while Picturehouse Entertainment has picked it up for the UK and Ireland.

Night Of The 12th has also sold to Australia and New Zealand (Potential Films), Latin America (Impacto), Taiwan (Swallow Wings), Poland (Aurora), the Baltics (A-one Films) and Israel (Lev Cinema).

The sales are the latest in a raft of...

French director Dominik Moll’s seventh feature debuts in the Cannes Premiere section.

Memento International has unveiled first deals for French director Dominik Moll’s Night Of The 12th ahead of its debut in Official Selection’s Cannes Premiere section.

In Europe, it has sold to Italy (Teodora), Spain (Filmin), Greece (Cinobo), ex-Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Bulgaria (Beta Films) and Ascot Elite has acquired rights for Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

The title is also generating interest in Asia with deals for Japan (Tohokushinsha Film Corporation) and Indonesia (Pt Falcon).

Paris-based Haut et Court, which produced the film, distributes in France. Brussel-based...

New titles join 47 unveiled at April 14 press conference and previously announced Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick.

Cannes Film Festival has added a flurry of new titles to its 2022 Official Selection, as promised by delegate general Thierry Frémaux at last week’s press conference unveiling the bulk of the titles due to premiere at its 75th edition, running May 17-28.

A total of 17 fresh additions were announced, joining the 47 films unveiled on April 14 as well as Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick, which were announced earlier. This brings the total number of films in selection so far to 66 against 83 in last year’s special July edition.

Jérémie is having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week. First, he’s run out of a “Jealousy Anonymous” meeting. Then, his boyfriend, hunky veterinarian Albert dumps him, precisely because of said jealousy. He’s been fired from his dream acting role and gave himself a black eye bumping into a wall while running away from another director, Sylvie, who is in the throes of her own breakdown.

To top it off, his father, who left his mother for another woman, has died by suicide. Desperate for love, desperate for a job, and just plain desperate, Jérémie makes his way from Paris to his mother’s countryside rental home near Saint-Auvent, seeking comfort and catharsis of some sort.

This is the premise of Maury’s directorial debut, “My Best Part,” which he co-wrote with Maud Ameline and Sophie Fillières. This funny, strange, and elusive character study is a film unlike any other,...

La nuit du 12

For the better part of the last decade Dominik Moll has been moving from feature film to directing television work and it looks like he has steered film now with back to back offerings. He made quite a remarkable entrance in naughts with 2000’s With a Friend Like Harry… and 2005’s Lemming, and sprinkled the past decade and a half with films that move into other film genres. Most recently shoring up at the 2019 edition of the Venice Film Festival – Giornate degli Autori section with Only the Animals (read review), and in October of 2021 he moved into production with his seventh project – once again a creative collab with Gilles Marchand.…...

Only The Animals (Seules les bêtes) Cohen Media Group Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Dominik Moll Writer: Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand. Adapted from Colin Niel’s novel ‘Seules les bêtes’ Cast: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Denis Ménochet Laure Calamy, Damien Bonnard, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Guy Roger “Bibisse” N’drin Screened at: […]

The post Only The Animals Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

With his intense gaze and buoyant personality, Damien Bonnard has emerged as a promising French talent since playing a conflicted rookie cop in Ladj Ly’s Cannes-prizewinning, Oscar-nominated “Les Miserables” in 2019.

Although Joachim Lafosse’s “The Restless” is the only the third film which he has headlined — alongside Leila Bekhti — his face will look familiar to anyone who has been watching French movies for the last decade. A workaholic with an insatiable curiosity, Bonnard has appeared in nearly 70 films, shorts and TV series since launching his acting career in 2009. Notable titles include Alain Guiraudie’s “Rester Vertical,” Dominik Moll’s “Only The Animals” and Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.”

“The Restless,” in which he plays a father and husband suffering from bipolar disorder, was his most physical and challenging role to date.

The film was well-received in its Cannes competition slot and is currently playing at the Colcoa festival in Los Angeles.

Catfish People: Moll Returns to the Ripple Effects of Identity Issues

In the early 2000s, German born Dominik Moll was a fast-rising director of contemporary French cinema thanks to the success of his sophomore film, the well-received thriller With a Friend Like Harry… (2000), followed by the enigmatic Lemming (2005). Diverging into literary adaptation with 2011’s The Monk and then light comedy in 2016’s News from Planet Mars, Moll reunites with scribe Gilles Marchand for another identity-razing thriller, Only the Animals (Seules les bêtes), adapted from a novel by Colin Niel. If Simenon had lived into the technological age, his narratives might have turned to similar dramatic catalysts as employed here in this disconsolate thriller masquerading as a melodrama, clicking together its pieces to a puzzle neatly, efficiently, and with more than its fair share of human developmental dysfunction to define it.…...

"Ducat's wife is still missing." Cohen Media Group has released an official trailer for Only the Animals (originally Seules les Bêtes), a French crime drama from German filmmaker Dominik Moll that is finally opening in the US this fall. This premiered back in 2019 and already opened in France and most of Europe. Following the disappearance of a woman during a snowstorm, five strangers in a remote mountain town are caught up in a mystery that spans continents and which none of them expected. "Award-winning director Dominik Moll returns with another thriller exploring our darker desires." The film's ensemble cast includes Denis Ménochet, Laure Calamy, Damien Bonnard, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Bastien Bouillon, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, and Jenny Bellay. This looks like a dark, stylish thriller with intertwining storylines. I'm always curious to see how everyone & everything connects. Here's the official US trailer (+ poster) for Dominik Moll's Only the Animals, direct from YouTube...

Chryssos won the best director award for ‘A Pure Place’.

World premieres by Nikias Chryssos and Franziska Stünkel were among the winners of the German Cinema New Talent Awards at this year’s Filmfest München, which wrapped at the weekend.

Chryssos won the best director award for his second feature A Pure Place, an offbeat coming-of-age tale about two young siblings engulfed in a secret community obsessed with soap, located on a remote Greek island. He was selected by a jury comprised of actors Sophie von Kessel and Komi M. Togbonou, and Barbara Mundel, artistic director of the Münchner Kammerspiele.

The film will be shooting in June, with a cast also including Laurent Stocker, India Hair and Pascale Arbillot. An Aurora Films and Local Films production sold by Indie Sales. In mid-June will begin in Île-de-France the shoot for Annie Colère, the third feature film by Blandine Lenoir after Zouzou (2014) and Fifty Springtimes (2017). In the cast, the director is working for the third time with Laure Calamy who will be flanked by Zita Hanrot (winner of the 2016 César award for Most Promising Actress for Fatima, and a stand...

Laure Calamy, Doria Tillier, Suzanne Clément, Dominique Blanc and Jacques Weber lead the cast of this Avenue B production sold by Charades. The first clapperboard slammed today on L’origine du mal, Sébastien Marnier’s 3rd feature film after Faultless (which earned its protagonist a nomination for Best Actress at the 2017 Césars) and School’s Out. The cast includes Laure Calamy, Doria Tillier...

Social drama revolves around an 11-year-old boy living in a mobile home with his mother on the edge of the woods.

France tv distribution has boarded sales on French director Fabienne Berthaud’s upcoming social drama Little Man Tom and Sylvie Audcoeur’s psychological thriller An Ordinary Mother, starring Karin Viard.

The film and TV sales division of French state broadcaster will introduce both titles to the market at the upcoming EFM (March 1-5).

Little Man Tom is the fifth feature of writer and director Berthaud and follows her 2019 Mongolia-set drama A Bigger World.

It is adapted from the 2017 novel...

The actor will share centre stage with Zar Amir Ebrahimi in Guillaume Renusson’s first feature film, a Baxter Films and Les Films Velvet production set to be sold by WTFilms. Halted after a week of shooting back in March on account of the strict lockdown implemented across France, filming on Guillaume Renusson’s first full-length work Les Survivants finally resumed on Monday 11 January. Shining bright in the cast are Denis Ménochet (recently nominated for the 2020 Best Supporting Role César for By The Grace of God; also well-received in Only The Animals) and French-Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi who are joined by Victoire Du Bois, Oscar Copp and Italy’s Luca Terracciano. Written by Guillaume Renusson and Clément Peny, the story (which won the Audience Award for Best Screenplay for a First Feature Film at Angers’ European First Film Festival) revolves around Samuel who, in...

The actress dazzles up front in Cécile Ducrocq’s first feature film, which is produced by Domino Films and sold by Charades. The first clapperboard slammed in eastern France today on Une femme du monde, the debut feature film by Cécile Ducrocq, a director highly acclaimed for her shorts, most notably Tout le monde dit je t’aime (UniFrance Award in Cannes 2011) and La contre-allée.Laure Calamy is supported in the cast by...

Enigma trumps excitement in this engrossing courtroom drama about a teenage girl on trial for killing her best friend

There’s a cool, forensic reserve to this French movie, mimicking the legalistic procedure that makes up most of the running time. It is a remake of The Accused, a 2018 film from Argentinian director Gonzalo Tobal about a teenage girl on trial for murdering her best friend, allegedly as revenge for putting a sexually explicit video of her online. Guilty or not guilty?

Related: Only the Animals review – audacious web of love and strangeness | Peter Bradshaw's film of the week...

Single mother drama opened Critics’ Week at Cannes.

Curzon Artificial Eye has secured UK rights to Franco Lolli’s Litigante in a deal with Paris-based sales company Kinology.

The distributor plans to release the film exclusively on streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) on July 3.

The second feature from French-Colombian director Lolli opened Cannes Critics’ Week in 2019 and went on to screen at Zurich, Gent, Chicago and Torino. It also received a theatrical release in France on February 19, ahead of cinema closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Filmed in Bogota, the character-driven drama revolves around a female lawyer facing a...

Titles include Cannes award-winner ‘On A Magical Night’ and courtroom drama ‘The Girl With A Bracelet’.

Curzon Artificial Eye has secured UK rights to Christophe Honoré’s Cannes award-winner On A Magical Night and Stéphane Demoustier’s courtroom drama The Girl With A Bracelet in a deal with Paris-based sales company Charades.

The distributor initially plans to release both exclusively on streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) later this month but intends to give each title theatrical screenings when cinemas reopen. While no date has yet been specified, it is anticipated that UK cinemas could reopen from July 4.

On A...

Dominik Moll’s thriller charts an unhappily married woman’s terrifying fate and her mysterious connections to five other people

Twenty years ago, director Dominik Moll made a splash at Cannes with his black-comic psychological shocker Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien, starring the incomparably disturbing Sergi López – a film with the kind of delicious cruelty and sophistication that somehow only the French can produce. Its title over here was inelegantly rendered as Harry, He’s Here to Help, although I made a doomed attempt to popularise my own version: Harry Wants to Be Your Friend. After that, Moll had a number of credits, but nothing to live up to that picture, which promised us a film-maker with the style of Claude Chabrol.

But now Moll has given us this audacious, witty and absorbing mystery thriller, a tale of adultery and amour fou with a gamey touch of...

Plans to screen all three theatrically when UK cinemas reopen.

Curzon Artificial Eye has secured UK rights to three features in a bid to strengthen its Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) offering, as audiences increasingly turn to streaming platforms during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The distributor has acquired Atom Egoyan’s Guest Of Honour, in a deal negotiated with Sebastian Beffa at Playtime; Dominik Moll’s Only The Animals, in a deal struck with Thania Dimitrakopoulou at The Match Factory; and Gianni Di Gregorio’s Citizens Of The World, after negotiations with Camille Neel at Le Pacte.

Curzon was forced to close...

Humans are frequently (if not almost always) slaves to our baser instincts: the need for shelter, sustenance, and human contact see us make irrational and sometimes deadly decision, with no regard for those around us. Pair this with the complications of marriages, employment, community, etc., and there is where most mysteries begin and end. And the community of the world, even with more than six billion people, is smaller than we think. French director Dominik Moll's latest film, Only the Animals, is told in five sections, set in central France and the Ivory Coast, and follows a small group of people whose connections that should bind them together ends up tearing them apart. The need for attachment, or for money, leads to a desparation that...

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

Late last month we learned that Monia Chokri has found her quartet of players for her sophomore feature film set to begin production this summer. With Baby-sitter, Chokri cast herself, Patrick Hivon (her second outing with the actor), Steve Laplante and French actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz (from Dennis Berry’s 2018 title Sauvages and last year’s Venice entry Only the Animals by Dominik Moll (read review). d’Amérique Film’s Martin Paul-Hus and Phase 4 Productions’ Fabrice Lambot are producing. Chokri’s celebrated debut film was the Un Certain Regard winning La femme de mon frère (A Brother’s Love).

Gist: Based on the play by Catherine Léger, this is about a recently unemployed man who repents by writing a book of apologies to women in his former workplace.…...

France’s Oscars unfold amid politically charged atmosphere following protests over nominations for Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy.

Ladj Ly’s explosive social drama Les Misérables won best film at a politically charged 45th Cesar awards on Friday evening which also saw Roman Polanski feted with best director for historical drama An Officer and A Spy.

The ceremony for France’s equivalent of the Oscars in the Salle Pleyel concert hall in central Paris unfolded in an atmosphere of heightened tension.

It has been a rocky six weeks for the awards, following a backlash by female rights activists...

France’s Oscars unfold amid politically charged atmosphere following protests over nominations for Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy.

Ladj Ly’s explosive social drama Les Misérables won best film at a politically charged 45th Cesar awards on Friday evening which also saw Roman Polanski feted with best director for historical drama An Officer and A Spy.

The ceremony for France’s equivalent of the Oscars in the Salle Pleyel concert hall in central Paris unfolded in an atmosphere of heightened tension.

It has been a rocky six weeks for the awards, following a backlash by female rights activists...

France’s Oscars unfold amid politically charged atmosphere following protests over nominations for Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy.

Ladj Ly’s explosive social drama Les Misérables won best film at a politically charged 45th Cesar awards on Friday evening which also saw Roman Polanski feted with best director for historical drama An Officer and A Spy.

The ceremony for France’s equivalent of the Oscars in the Salle Pleyel concert hall in central Paris unfolded in an atmosphere of heightened tension.

It has been a rocky six weeks for the awards, following a backlash by female rights activists...

France’s Oscars unfold amid politically charged atmosphere following protests over nominations for Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy.

Ladj Ly’s explosive social drama Les Misérables won best film at a politically charged 45th Cesar awards on Friday evening which also saw Roman Polanski feted with best director for historical drama An Officer and A Spy.

The ceremony for France’s equivalent of the Oscars in the Salle Pleyel concert hall in central Paris unfolded in an atmosphere of heightened tension.

It has been a rocky six weeks for the awards, following a backlash by female rights activists...

France’s Oscars unfold amid politically charged atmosphere following protests over nominations for Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy.

Ladj Ly’s explosive social drama Les Misérables won best film at a politically charged 45th Cesar awards on Friday evening which also saw Roman Polanski feted with best director for historical drama An Officer and A Spy.

The ceremony for France’s equivalent of the Oscars in the Salle Pleyel concert hall in central Paris unfolded in an atmosphere of heightened tension.

It has been a rocky six weeks for the awards, following a backlash by female rights activists...

“Uncle,” Danish director Frelle Petersen’s drama about a young woman’s life on a small farm with her disabled uncle, was awarded the Tokyo Grand Prix at the closing ceremony Tuesday of the 32nd Tokyo International Film Festival. Shot in rural Denmark with real-life farmer Peter Hansen Tygesen playing the title role, the film had its world premiere in the Japanese capital.

Winner of the second-place Special Jury Prize was “Atlantis,” Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s near-future drama.

Iran’s Saeed Roustaee was named Best Director for his thriller “6.5.” Navid Mohammadzadeh’s performance in the film earned him the Best Actor trophy.

The Best Actress award went to Nadia Tereszhiewicz for her performance in Dominik Moll’s “Only the Animals.” The film also scooped the Audience Award.

The Best Screenplay prize went to Shin Adachi’s “A Beloved Wife,” one of two Japanese films in the competition, while Chinese...

An enticing menu featuring more than 100 films at the 41st edition of the Cinemed, Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, which will unfold from 18 to 26 October. The excellent Adults in the Room by Costa-Gavras will tomorrow open the 41st edition of the Cinemed, Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival (now presided by Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando), which will unfold from 18-26 October. The guest of honour this year is French filmmaker André Téchiné, and this iteration of the gathering will close with Dominik Moll’s Only the Animals. Ten fiction features will be competing for the 2019 Antigone d'Or Award, which will be given out by a jury presided by French director Julie Bertuccelli. Among them, four films presented at Venice stand out: A Son from Tunisian director Mehdi M Barsaoui (winner of the Best Actor Orizzonti...

Competition to screen 14 titles including the world premieres of Japanese films Tezuka’s Barbara and A Beloved Wife.

Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) has announced the full line-up for its 32nd edition, including the 14 titles selected for its International Competition.

In addition to previously announced Japanese titles Tezuka’s Barbara from Macoto Tezka and Shin Adachi’s A Beloved Wife, the competition will screen five other world premieres including Chinese director Wang Rui’s Chaogtu With Sarula, Food For A Funeral from Turkey’s Reis Celik and Uncle from Danish director Frelle Petersen.

Asia premieres in this section include Jayro...

The Tokyo International Film Festival will this year give over most of its competition section to films from outside East Asia. This contrasts to previous editions with a strong presence from the region.

The festival, which will hold its 32nd edition next month, announced its lineup Thursday. Of the 14 announced films for competition, only two – Wang Rui’s “Chaogtu With Sarula” (China) and Paul Soriano’s ”Mananita” (Philippines) – are from East Asia.

Korean films are noticeably absent this year, a situation that may reflect the acute political tensions between Tokyo and Seoul.

Others in the competition are Valentyn Vasyanovych’s “Atlantis” and Jorunn Myklebust Syversen’s “Disco,” which both screened at Toronto. The competition also includes Saeid Rustai’s “Just 6.5,” Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona,” Nunzia De Stefano’s “Nevia” and Dominik Moll’s “Only the Animals,” which were all pickups from Venice.

The two Japanese films in the competition...

Colette director Wash Westmoreland will head this year’s BFI London Film Festival (Lff) main jury. He will be joined by Game Of Thrones actress Lena Headey, Egyptian writer and producer Mohamed Hefzy, I, Daniel Blake actress Hayley Squires, director Sudabeh Mortezai (whose Joy won last year’s Lff Competition) and magazine editor Jane Crowther. The Lff First Feature Competition jury will be led by Jessica Hausner, whose Little Joe screens at this year’s fest. Joining her are filmmaker Shola Amoo, whose The Last Tree was at Sundance this year, playwright Theresa Ikoko, and Lilting director Hong Khaou. The festival’s Documentary Competition will be overseen by Strong Island director Yance Ford, with outgoing DocLisboa head Cintia Gil, soon to take over at Sheffield Doc/Fest, and Skate Kitchen producer Julia Nottingham. Finally, the short film jury consists of filmmakers Amrou Al-Kadhi and Mark Jenkin, actor Alex Lawther, and actress and writer Marli Siu.