Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
After Blue (Bertrand Mandico)
In the post-apocalyptic nightmare of After Blue, humanity—or what’s left of it—roams a former paradise turned wasteland. The Armageddon that wrecked the Earth in some undetermined past left no machines behind, no screens, and, perhaps most conspicuously, no men. In the distant planet the human race fled to, and which writer-director Bertrand Mandico’s film is named after, “they were the first to die,” we’re warned early on: “their hairs grew inside them, and killed them.” As it was for its predecessor, The Wild Boys, After Blue is suffused in a feverish ecstasy, that wild excitement that comes from a watching one world crumble and another jutting into being from scratch, a vision of...
After Blue (Bertrand Mandico)
In the post-apocalyptic nightmare of After Blue, humanity—or what’s left of it—roams a former paradise turned wasteland. The Armageddon that wrecked the Earth in some undetermined past left no machines behind, no screens, and, perhaps most conspicuously, no men. In the distant planet the human race fled to, and which writer-director Bertrand Mandico’s film is named after, “they were the first to die,” we’re warned early on: “their hairs grew inside them, and killed them.” As it was for its predecessor, The Wild Boys, After Blue is suffused in a feverish ecstasy, that wild excitement that comes from a watching one world crumble and another jutting into being from scratch, a vision of...
- 3/22/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
After the cinematic doldrums of January, February brings surprisingly packed, varied offerings, from Oscar-contending international features to biographical documentaries of legendary film artists to some electrifying genre outings. Check out my picks to see below, and catch up with our Sundance coverage ahead of our Berlinale reviews here.
16. The Monk and the Gun (Pawo Choyning Dorji; Feb. 9)
Returning after his Oscar-nominated directorial debut Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Ifsn Advocate Award-shortlisted The Monk and the Gun premiered at Telluride and TIFF to much acclaim and will now be released this month. Selected by Bhutan as their Oscar entry, the heartwarming film is about an American in search of a long-lost, vintage gun in Bhutan as the country’s launching a democracy.
15. Ennio (Giuseppe Tornatore; Feb. 9)
The film world lost perhaps its most legendary musician when Ennio Morricone died at the age of 91 in July 2020. Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore,...
16. The Monk and the Gun (Pawo Choyning Dorji; Feb. 9)
Returning after his Oscar-nominated directorial debut Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Ifsn Advocate Award-shortlisted The Monk and the Gun premiered at Telluride and TIFF to much acclaim and will now be released this month. Selected by Bhutan as their Oscar entry, the heartwarming film is about an American in search of a long-lost, vintage gun in Bhutan as the country’s launching a democracy.
15. Ennio (Giuseppe Tornatore; Feb. 9)
The film world lost perhaps its most legendary musician when Ennio Morricone died at the age of 91 in July 2020. Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore,...
- 2/1/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
French auteur Bertrand Mandico has earned a reputation as one of contemporary cinema's most intriguing and inventive talents. With an extensive portfolio of experimental short films under his belt, Mandico first gained widespread recognition through his feature-length debut, Wild Boys. This film set the stage for his unique cinematic vision, one that employs a surrealistic approach to merge narrative and form in a manner that eschews naturalism. His subsequent work, After Blue, further explored this dreamlike narrative structure, imbued with a complexity of themes. Mandico returned to Locarno with his latest work, She Is Conann (orig. title: Connan), while also screening the complete Barbarian cycle, in which She Is Conann serves as a central element. Though the film bears a fleeting resemblance to Robert E. Howard's creation, Mandico...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 1/31/2024
- Screen Anarchy
The Wild Boys director Bertrand Mandico returned earlier this year, debuting his 35mm-shot queer fantasy She Is Conann at Cannes Film Festival. Now set for a February 2 release in NY, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver and more, with the director and star Elina Löwensohn in person at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives, the new trailer has arrived from Altered Innocence.
Savina Petkova said in her review, “Following The Wild Boys and After Blue, Conann marks the third feature-length project from prolific shorts filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. Many are still not convinced long-form fits his intense and imaginative style, but what’s certain is that Conann makes one heck of a watch. Part of the self-contained cosmos of Mandico’s explosive vision, this new film is a provocative tale of endurance and self-discovery inspired by the fantasy character Conan the Barbarian (or the Cimmerian). Mandico takes the figure of a sword and...
Savina Petkova said in her review, “Following The Wild Boys and After Blue, Conann marks the third feature-length project from prolific shorts filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. Many are still not convinced long-form fits his intense and imaginative style, but what’s certain is that Conann makes one heck of a watch. Part of the self-contained cosmos of Mandico’s explosive vision, this new film is a provocative tale of endurance and self-discovery inspired by the fantasy character Conan the Barbarian (or the Cimmerian). Mandico takes the figure of a sword and...
- 1/5/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Experimental French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico isn’t for everyone — i.e. an acquired taste whose visions push boundaries of cinematic expression — but he’s achieved something of a cult fandom over the last three decades. After last pairing with the director on 2022’s “After Blue” and 2017’s uninhibited Venice winner “The Wild Boys” — Cahiers du Cinéma’s top film of 2018 — the distributor Altered Innocence again teams with Mandico on another provocation. His 2023 Cannes premiere “She Is Conann,” nominated for the Queer Palm before going on to play at other festivals including Locarno, is an acid-trip transgressive riff on the Conan the Barbarian myth. IndieWire shares the trailer here.
Influences on the film include Tony Scott’s “The Hunger,” the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Liliana Cavani’s “The Night Porter,” and Fellini’s “Satyricon.” Throw Ken Russell in there for good measure, with profane images in “She Is Conann” reminiscent of “The Devils.
Influences on the film include Tony Scott’s “The Hunger,” the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Liliana Cavani’s “The Night Porter,” and Fellini’s “Satyricon.” Throw Ken Russell in there for good measure, with profane images in “She Is Conann” reminiscent of “The Devils.
- 1/4/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Altered Innocence has picked up North American rights to Bertrand Mandico’s gory, transgressive fantasy movie “Conann,” which had its world premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and will soon be making its way to Locarno Film Festival. Kinology is handling world sales.
The film will tour at film festivals throughout the fall and be released theatrically next year.
Following different iterations of the ruthless Connan the Barbarian, the film also stars Elina Löwensohn in canine prosthetics as Rainer, Conann’s spiritual guide.
In the film, guardian of the underworld, Cerberus, still has a muzzle, but here he is called Rainer, and has the breasts and the voice of a woman, wears a studded black leather jacket, and a flash camera fit for the paparazzi. Talking to us from the great beyond, he details the successive reincarnations of Conann the Barbarian, a bloodthirsty Amazon from ancient times.
“A visceral and impulsive queer illusionist,...
The film will tour at film festivals throughout the fall and be released theatrically next year.
Following different iterations of the ruthless Connan the Barbarian, the film also stars Elina Löwensohn in canine prosthetics as Rainer, Conann’s spiritual guide.
In the film, guardian of the underworld, Cerberus, still has a muzzle, but here he is called Rainer, and has the breasts and the voice of a woman, wears a studded black leather jacket, and a flash camera fit for the paparazzi. Talking to us from the great beyond, he details the successive reincarnations of Conann the Barbarian, a bloodthirsty Amazon from ancient times.
“A visceral and impulsive queer illusionist,...
- 7/6/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Following The Wild Boys and After Blue, Conann marks the third feature-length project from prolific shorts filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. Many are still not convinced long-form fits his intense and imaginative style, but what’s certain is that Conann makes one heck of a watch. Part of the self-contained cosmos of Mandico’s explosive vision, this new film is a provocative tale of endurance and self-discovery inspired by the fantasy character Conan the Barbarian (or the Cimmerian). Mandico takes the figure of a sword and sorcery hero––obviously interested in his pulp magazine origins––and fashions a timeless, iterative narrative of phantasmagoric fluidity… and glitter.
Conann is framed by a first-person narration, that of Rainer the hellhound (Elina Löwensohn in impressive dog-faced costume), who roams the netherworld and is suspiciously attracted to the main protagonist, however antagonistic he may appear. But the hero is Conann, a queer rendition of an otherwise masculine symbol,...
Conann is framed by a first-person narration, that of Rainer the hellhound (Elina Löwensohn in impressive dog-faced costume), who roams the netherworld and is suspiciously attracted to the main protagonist, however antagonistic he may appear. But the hero is Conann, a queer rendition of an otherwise masculine symbol,...
- 5/30/2023
- by Savina Petkova
- The Film Stage
The sidebar unveiled its 55th selection under new artistic director Julien Rejl on Tuesday (April 18).
Films from Michel Gondry, Hong Sangsoo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.
Scroll down for the full selection
Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.
Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.
Films from Michel Gondry, Hong Sangsoo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.
Scroll down for the full selection
Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.
Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.
- 4/18/2023
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
The sidebar unveiled its 55th selection under new artistic director Julien Rejl on Tuesday (April 18).
Projects from Michel Gondry, Hong Sang-Soo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.
Scroll down for the full selection
Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.
Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.
Projects from Michel Gondry, Hong Sang-Soo and Cédric Kahn are among the 19 features set to world premiere at the 55th Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, running May 17-26.
Scroll down for the full selection
Incoming artistic director Julien Rejl unveiled the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 18) for the non-competitive Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.
Rejl said he and his committee chose the films from nearly 4,000 submissions and travelled to more than 20 countries to meet filmmakers and professionals across the globe.
- 4/18/2023
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
The Afrofuturist musical is exec produced by Lin-Mauel Miranda.
UK distributor Anti-Worlds has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Afrofuturist musical Neptune Frost from Kino Lorber. The film premiered in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight in 2021 and was nominated for the Queer Palm award.
Set in a Rwandan village made of computer parts, the sci-fi musical follows an intersex African hacker and a coltan miner who, along with their love child, trigger a revolution against the authoritarian regime. The cast is made up of newcomers Elvis Ngabo, Cheryl Isheja and Kaya Free.
The film will be...
UK distributor Anti-Worlds has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Afrofuturist musical Neptune Frost from Kino Lorber. The film premiered in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight in 2021 and was nominated for the Queer Palm award.
Set in a Rwandan village made of computer parts, the sci-fi musical follows an intersex African hacker and a coltan miner who, along with their love child, trigger a revolution against the authoritarian regime. The cast is made up of newcomers Elvis Ngabo, Cheryl Isheja and Kaya Free.
The film will be...
- 8/3/2022
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Writer/Director Bertrand Mandico unleashes his wild imagination and flair for the surreal on screen in his trippy, sensual feature After Blue. Mandico fuses the western genre with sci-fi and fantasy, though never as straightforward as that may sound. While the heady plunge into a sumptuous dreamscape offers an immersive sensory experience unlike any other, After Blue’s overindulgent pacing and […]
The post ‘After Blue’ Review – Psychedelic Phantasmagorical Voyage Overstays Its Welcome appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The post ‘After Blue’ Review – Psychedelic Phantasmagorical Voyage Overstays Its Welcome appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
- 6/3/2022
- by Meagan Navarro
- bloody-disgusting.com
Her name is Roxy, but the village girls call her Toxic. With peroxide-blond hair and the Lolita-like naiveté of a vintage sexploitation-movie heroine, Roxy wanders through a post-apocalyptic world as unfamiliar to us as it is to her — for we have all stepped into the parallel dimension that is underground filmmaker Bertrand Mandico’s erotic imagination. Welcome to the dirty paradise of “After Blue.”
Humans have poisoned Earth and fled to a new planet, which they’ve dubbed After Blue. Screens and machines have since been banished, making way for a kind of old-world mysticism of sparkling dust, psychedelic lights and occult symbols — like a third eye, superimposed over the pubic triangle of the most enlightened. Operating in the mode of Polish porno-surrealist Walerian Borowczyk, Mandico creates sensual mood trips using only practical effects (this one could be the “Barbarella”-style sci-fi film-within-a-film being produced in Mandico’s 2018 meta-textual short...
Humans have poisoned Earth and fled to a new planet, which they’ve dubbed After Blue. Screens and machines have since been banished, making way for a kind of old-world mysticism of sparkling dust, psychedelic lights and occult symbols — like a third eye, superimposed over the pubic triangle of the most enlightened. Operating in the mode of Polish porno-surrealist Walerian Borowczyk, Mandico creates sensual mood trips using only practical effects (this one could be the “Barbarella”-style sci-fi film-within-a-film being produced in Mandico’s 2018 meta-textual short...
- 6/3/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Summer blockbusters are here with the likes of Jurassic World: Dominion (June 10), Lightyear, and Elvis (June 24) bowing this month. The power of their box office estimates seems so high that Disney decided to just put all its Searchlight titles on Hulu instead of taking their own screens away from Buzz’s origin story. We’re living in a brand-new time of monopoly math.
Thankfully the independent studios are chugging along to provide the type of counter-programming cinephiles need to get out of the sun. And, as per usual, those are the ones sporting the creativity that carries the poster art form away from floating head collage towards aesthetic ingenuity.
Heading out
Iconarts Creative’s Fire Island shows that you can still create excitement and motion with a film still. All it takes is a slight tilt of the frame, an image of characters on the move, and an impeccable font...
Thankfully the independent studios are chugging along to provide the type of counter-programming cinephiles need to get out of the sun. And, as per usual, those are the ones sporting the creativity that carries the poster art form away from floating head collage towards aesthetic ingenuity.
Heading out
Iconarts Creative’s Fire Island shows that you can still create excitement and motion with a film still. All it takes is a slight tilt of the frame, an image of characters on the move, and an impeccable font...
- 6/3/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
A voice introduces us to the future: “You are in space,” it says, “...the Earth was sick and rotten.” Bertrand Mandico’s second feature, the comedy-western-fantasy After Blue (Dirty Paradise), is named after a post-Earth home to humanity. This other planet, After Blue, located in another solar system, offers anyone with ovaries—anyone without them dies choked by their own hairs—the hope of a redemption. “If everything is to be done, nothing is to be done again,” declares a sign in the natural wilderness: strict and arbitrary rules are established to “strike the evil at its roots,” as one of the surviving women state. At best phantasmagorical, the dream of a humanity free of evil—through its systematic eradication of one gender—produces distortions where community becomes authoritarian, and purification, commanded.One day on an excursion outside her community, Roxy (Paola Luna) discovers buried in the sand a female...
- 6/2/2022
- MUBI
In the not-so-distant future, on a planet far, far away, a mother and daughter travel across a hostile landscape with one mission and one mission only: to kill Kate Bush.
Don’t worry, it’s not beloved 1980s singer-songwriter Kate Bush, but a once-dormant evil Polish woman named Katajena Bushovsky now spreading violence and hatred. This is the quest at the center of Bertrand Mandico’s new film “After Blue (Dirty Paradise).”
The film’s title comes from its setting: “After Blue (Dirty Paradise)” is an acid space western set on the planet that comes after Earth, and it is indeed a dirty paradise, though more the former than the latter. After Blue is populated only by women, or so we’re informed, and they hoped to start society anew with greater peace and prosperity. No screens, no machines (though there are guns).
Also Read:
‘Stranger Things’ Catapults Kate Bush...
Don’t worry, it’s not beloved 1980s singer-songwriter Kate Bush, but a once-dormant evil Polish woman named Katajena Bushovsky now spreading violence and hatred. This is the quest at the center of Bertrand Mandico’s new film “After Blue (Dirty Paradise).”
The film’s title comes from its setting: “After Blue (Dirty Paradise)” is an acid space western set on the planet that comes after Earth, and it is indeed a dirty paradise, though more the former than the latter. After Blue is populated only by women, or so we’re informed, and they hoped to start society anew with greater peace and prosperity. No screens, no machines (though there are guns).
Also Read:
‘Stranger Things’ Catapults Kate Bush...
- 6/2/2022
- by Fran Hoepfner
- The Wrap
The long-awaited return of beloved auteurs, new discoveries, decades-in-the-works passion projects, festival winners, and beyond are among June’s major offerings. Check out our picks for what to see below.
15. Watcher (Chloe Okuno; June 3)
Slipping back into a genre she knows well, Maika Monroe leads Chloe Okuno’s Watcher, a slow-burn thriller with a sense of paranoia seeping into every frame. Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his Sundance review, “Ever since It Follows, the 2014 horror movie about a spectral grim reaper stalking a teenage girl, Maika Monroe has become her generation’s avatar of fear and paranoia. Throughout her filmography, she boasts an inner world of melancholy that begins in a delicate register and then multiplies into a feverish anguish the farther her characters tumble down their own rabbit holes. It’s the kind of psychological spiraling that gives oxygen to director Chloe Okuno’s feature debut, Watcher, a chamber piece...
15. Watcher (Chloe Okuno; June 3)
Slipping back into a genre she knows well, Maika Monroe leads Chloe Okuno’s Watcher, a slow-burn thriller with a sense of paranoia seeping into every frame. Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his Sundance review, “Ever since It Follows, the 2014 horror movie about a spectral grim reaper stalking a teenage girl, Maika Monroe has become her generation’s avatar of fear and paranoia. Throughout her filmography, she boasts an inner world of melancholy that begins in a delicate register and then multiplies into a feverish anguish the farther her characters tumble down their own rabbit holes. It’s the kind of psychological spiraling that gives oxygen to director Chloe Okuno’s feature debut, Watcher, a chamber piece...
- 6/1/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Taste of a Toxic Paradise: Mandico Casts a Dark Spell with Broody Sci-Fi
Through a variety of short films, music videos (including several for M83), and his 2017 feature film, The Wild Boys, Bertrand Mandico fills a transgressive void in his dazzling mutations of arthouse queer aesthetics. Pushing boundaries of sexuality and gender through narrative themes and visual metaphors, his sophomore film After Blue is revisionist Western masquerading as vintage sci-fi, like hallucinogenic Heinlein meets femme-centric Ballard. An ambitious palette dwindles into a trance-inducing odyssey through a strange world’s poisonous hinterlands, where trippy vibes are broken up only by odd jabs of titillation and unfurling desires.…...
Through a variety of short films, music videos (including several for M83), and his 2017 feature film, The Wild Boys, Bertrand Mandico fills a transgressive void in his dazzling mutations of arthouse queer aesthetics. Pushing boundaries of sexuality and gender through narrative themes and visual metaphors, his sophomore film After Blue is revisionist Western masquerading as vintage sci-fi, like hallucinogenic Heinlein meets femme-centric Ballard. An ambitious palette dwindles into a trance-inducing odyssey through a strange world’s poisonous hinterlands, where trippy vibes are broken up only by odd jabs of titillation and unfurling desires.…...
- 5/31/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
"When she gets here, you'll have to shoot her." Altered Innocence has revealed the US trailer for a French sci-fi film called After Blue (Dirty Paradise), which first premiered at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. It also played at the Toronto Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest, and Busan. Everything about it sounds mesmerizing. A chimeric future on After Blue, a planet in another galaxy, a virgin planet where only women can survive in the midst of harmless flora & fauna. The story follows a punitive expedition to the planet. “Seductive, ethereal, bizarre... A kaleidoscopic fantasy warped through the lens of a 1970s sci-fi Western, After Blue is a synthetic siren song for the freaks of the future and the past," one review states. The PR folks add: "the newest vision from Bertrand Mandico (The Wild Boys) plays like a lesbian El Topo (in space!) with stunning 35mm in-camera practical effects, otherworldly set pieces,...
- 4/24/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
After his delirious, vividly strange debut The Wild Boys, Bertrand Mandico is back with After Blue (Dirty Paradise), which premiered at Locarno Film Festival last year and will now arrive in U.S. theaters starting June 3. Set in a faraway future, on a wild and untamed female inhabited planet called After Blue, the queer sci-fi fantasy romance follows a lonely teenager named Roxy who unknowingly releases a mystical, dangerous, and sensual assassin from her prison. Roxy and her mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn) are held accountable, banished from their community, and forced to track the murderer named Kate Bush down. Haunted by the spirits of her murdered friends, Roxy starts a long journey pacing the supernatural territories of this filthy paradise. Ahead of the release, the new U.S. trailer has now arrived.
Leonardo Goi said in his review, “In the post-apocalyptic nightmare of After Blue, humanity—or what’s left...
Leonardo Goi said in his review, “In the post-apocalyptic nightmare of After Blue, humanity—or what’s left...
- 4/21/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDesigned by Hartland Villa, the official poster for the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival features a still from Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol’s The Truman Show. The festival has also unveiled the lineup for its official selection, which features a hefty list of competitors for the Palme d'Or. Check out the full lineup here.Accompanying the official selection are the Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week lineups, which are not to be overlooked. Pietro Marcello's French-language debut Scarlet will be opening the Directors' Fortnight, while Yann Gonzalez and July Jung will be premiering new films at Critics' Week. Kelly Reichardt will be receiving an honorary Golden Leopard from this year's Locarno International Film Festival in celebration of her distinguished career, throughout which she's "[redesigned] the profile of genres, from western to thriller,...
- 4/20/2022
- MUBI
Altered Innocence is traveling to After Blue (Dirty Paradise), a nightmarish sci-fi horror fantasy from French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. that had its premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Bloody Disgusting previously scored an exclusive look at the English-language teaser trailer that’s nothing short of spectacular, sparkling with glitter and gold and dropping viewers into […]
The post Altered Innocence Travels to the Glittery Hell of ‘After Blue (Dirty Paradise)’ This June [Trailer] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The post Altered Innocence Travels to the Glittery Hell of ‘After Blue (Dirty Paradise)’ This June [Trailer] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
- 4/20/2022
- by Brad Miska
- bloody-disgusting.com
French helmer Bertrand Mandico has achieved a cult following for his gender-bending sensorial surrealist visions, with more than 20 short films and two feature films completed to date.
His first feature, “The Wild Boys,” about five wealthy adolescent boys sent to a tropical island, all played by actresses, premiered in Venice. It won the Louis-Delluc 2018 prize for best first film and topped Cahiers du Cinéma’s 2018 list of Top 10 films.
His sophomore feature “After Blue (Dirty Paradise),” is a sci-fi western, again primarily with a female cast, including Mandico’s fetish actress Elina Löwensohn. It had its world premiere at Locarno in 2021, where it won the Fipresci prize, followed by its North American premiere in Toronto’s Midnight Madness sidebar, and U.S. premiere in the Fantastic Fest, where it won Best Film. It won the Special Jury Prize at Sitges.
The helmer is now completing post-production on his third feature,...
His first feature, “The Wild Boys,” about five wealthy adolescent boys sent to a tropical island, all played by actresses, premiered in Venice. It won the Louis-Delluc 2018 prize for best first film and topped Cahiers du Cinéma’s 2018 list of Top 10 films.
His sophomore feature “After Blue (Dirty Paradise),” is a sci-fi western, again primarily with a female cast, including Mandico’s fetish actress Elina Löwensohn. It had its world premiere at Locarno in 2021, where it won the Fipresci prize, followed by its North American premiere in Toronto’s Midnight Madness sidebar, and U.S. premiere in the Fantastic Fest, where it won Best Film. It won the Special Jury Prize at Sitges.
The helmer is now completing post-production on his third feature,...
- 1/13/2022
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
France’s burgeoning VR sector is exploring the hybrid territory between commercial applications, film festivals and contemporary art museums.
French producers and authorities are increasingly interested in VR and extended reality solutions against a backdrop of multiple recent developments – such as Facebook’s rebranding as Meta, Sony’s next-generation VR headset for PlayStation 5, Disney’s patents of “virtual-world simulator” tech, and an estimated $3 billion of virtual reality headsets sold during Covid-19 lockdowns.
One of the key French hubs for VR production is Plaine Images, a Hauts-de-France innovation park, based in Lille, in Northern France, which houses production companies, research centers, and three schools, including Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary and Visual Arts.
Le Fresnoy produced Faye Formisano’s “They Dream in My Bones – Insemnopedy II,” one of 10 VR projects screening at Sundance 2022, within the fest’s New Frontier sidebar.
French helmer Bertrand Mandico (“After Blue”) and philosopher Emanuele Coccia...
French producers and authorities are increasingly interested in VR and extended reality solutions against a backdrop of multiple recent developments – such as Facebook’s rebranding as Meta, Sony’s next-generation VR headset for PlayStation 5, Disney’s patents of “virtual-world simulator” tech, and an estimated $3 billion of virtual reality headsets sold during Covid-19 lockdowns.
One of the key French hubs for VR production is Plaine Images, a Hauts-de-France innovation park, based in Lille, in Northern France, which houses production companies, research centers, and three schools, including Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary and Visual Arts.
Le Fresnoy produced Faye Formisano’s “They Dream in My Bones – Insemnopedy II,” one of 10 VR projects screening at Sundance 2022, within the fest’s New Frontier sidebar.
French helmer Bertrand Mandico (“After Blue”) and philosopher Emanuele Coccia...
- 1/9/2022
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Icelandic-Swedish-Polish drama “Lamb,” starring Noomi Rapace was awarded best film and actress for Rapace at the 54th edition of Sitges’ International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, which wrapped Sunday.
The prizes add to an Originality Prize which the film received when competing at July’s Cannes Un Certain Regard.
“Lamb,” a horror-comedy combo, follows protagonist Maria, played by Rapace, a woman living with her husband in the total loneliness of the Icelandic countryside. According to a Variety review, “creepy-funny-weird-sad ‘Lamb’ proves just how far disbelief can be suspended if you’re in the hands of a director — and a cast, and a SFX/puppetry department — who really commit to the bit.” Lamb is produced by Go to Sheep, Black Spark Film & TV and Madants with New Europe Film Sales and A24 attached.
Rapace shared best actress honors with Susanne Jensen in Peter Brunner’s “Luzifer.” Justin Kurzel...
The prizes add to an Originality Prize which the film received when competing at July’s Cannes Un Certain Regard.
“Lamb,” a horror-comedy combo, follows protagonist Maria, played by Rapace, a woman living with her husband in the total loneliness of the Icelandic countryside. According to a Variety review, “creepy-funny-weird-sad ‘Lamb’ proves just how far disbelief can be suspended if you’re in the hands of a director — and a cast, and a SFX/puppetry department — who really commit to the bit.” Lamb is produced by Go to Sheep, Black Spark Film & TV and Madants with New Europe Film Sales and A24 attached.
Rapace shared best actress honors with Susanne Jensen in Peter Brunner’s “Luzifer.” Justin Kurzel...
- 10/18/2021
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
It's awards time at Sitges as the festival nears its end. The Méliès d'Or awards are just a half hour away and the festival has handed out its awards last night. Valdimar Johánnsson's Lamb has won for best feature film, Bertrand Mandico's After Blue will take home the Special Jury Prize and Justin Kurzel was awarded for his direction of his new film Nitram. Recognition for acting was divied up for both actors and actresses. The special effects award was kind of a no-brainer, going to animating legend Phil Tippett for his stop motion opus Mad God. Mulitple award winners include Lamb, After Blue, Nitram, Mad God, Luzifer, and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. All the winners are listed below. ...
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- 10/16/2021
- Screen Anarchy
Paradis Sale, the original french title of Bertrand Mandico's sophomore feature, translates as 'Dirty Paradise'. And this place isn't exactly a paradise, nor is it dirty. But it is most definitely strange and surreal, filled with intoxication and eroticism, and highly dangerous. After his first feature about wild boys, it seems Mandico (a prolific filmmaker of shorts) wanted to take a proverbial (and literal) walk on the wild side with women. Humans have long since left the earth, finding a new planet to colonize, which they name 'After Blue'. But the planet, it turns out, is hostile to men, and only women (or those with ovaries) survive. The species is maintained through artificial insemination, but society itself has become both beautiful and at times cruel,...
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[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 10/15/2021
- Screen Anarchy
‘After Blue’ Review: Erotic Lesbian Acid Trip Is Like ‘The Love Witch’ Set on Planet ‘Annihiliation’
If you unearthed a glittery demon with one hairy arm who awakened your deepest desires from the third eye between her legs, what lengths would you travel to find her again? This, and plenty more completely insane scenarios, are among the many posed in Bertrand Mandico’s seductive, ethereal, and bizarre epic “After Blue,” aptly subtitled “Dirty Paradise.”
Set on a fantasy planet where only women can survive the harsh climate, the adventure follows a mother and daughter on a grueling journey to find and kill the evil “Kate Bush,” rumored to be death herself. One part “Annihilation” and one part “The Love Witch,” and cast under the veneer of a sadistic “The NeverEnding Story,” the film
The fantastical fable is narrated by Roxy (Paula-Luna Breitenfelder), a petulant teenager with a bleached-blonde mullet, who stares blankly into the camera in conversation with a mysterious disembodied voice. “The Earth was sick,...
Set on a fantasy planet where only women can survive the harsh climate, the adventure follows a mother and daughter on a grueling journey to find and kill the evil “Kate Bush,” rumored to be death herself. One part “Annihilation” and one part “The Love Witch,” and cast under the veneer of a sadistic “The NeverEnding Story,” the film
The fantastical fable is narrated by Roxy (Paula-Luna Breitenfelder), a petulant teenager with a bleached-blonde mullet, who stares blankly into the camera in conversation with a mysterious disembodied voice. “The Earth was sick,...
- 10/7/2021
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Horror fans don’t have to wait until October to celebrate the scary movies, but this month offers a welcome opportunity to embrace the form. Last year, when the pandemic made in-person film festivals hard to achieve, four respected genre festivals from around the country — Boston Underground, Brooklyn Horror, North Bend, and Overlook — joined forces for a virtual festival event called Nightstream. Blending traditional horror programming with broader examples of genre filmmaking, the lineup provided a welcome opportunity to bring the festival experience to audiences nationwide.
This year is no exception: The second edition of Nightstream begins tonight and runs through October 13, with an exciting online program of films and events accessible to anyone in the U.S. Badgeholders will be able to tune into conversations with David Lowery, “Malignant” writer Akela Cooper, and “Creepshow” showrunner Greg Nicotero, as well as recurring events like The Future of Film Is Female...
This year is no exception: The second edition of Nightstream begins tonight and runs through October 13, with an exciting online program of films and events accessible to anyone in the U.S. Badgeholders will be able to tune into conversations with David Lowery, “Malignant” writer Akela Cooper, and “Creepshow” showrunner Greg Nicotero, as well as recurring events like The Future of Film Is Female...
- 10/7/2021
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Fantastic Fest 2021 is bringing its physical edition to an end on September 30, and IndieWire is exclusively revealing this year’s award winners below. Many of the winning features will be available to stream September 30 through October 11 as part of the virtual Fantastic Fest at Home, including “After Blue,” “Zalava,” “Name Above Title,” and “Let the Wrong One In.” All the award-winning short films will stream virtual as well.
This year’s Competition winner for Best Film is Bertrand Mandico’s “After Blue.” The movie is set on a mysterious planet populated entirely by women, where a teenager and her mother set out on a journey to find a murderous criminal.
“After Blue (Dirty Paradise) is a mutant-cinema dream,” Mandico said in a statement. “The dream of taking my actresses and collaborators towards an emotional lyricism of creation. The dream of giving spectators an out-of-format, intoxicating and disturbing fantasy. Thanks to...
This year’s Competition winner for Best Film is Bertrand Mandico’s “After Blue.” The movie is set on a mysterious planet populated entirely by women, where a teenager and her mother set out on a journey to find a murderous criminal.
“After Blue (Dirty Paradise) is a mutant-cinema dream,” Mandico said in a statement. “The dream of taking my actresses and collaborators towards an emotional lyricism of creation. The dream of giving spectators an out-of-format, intoxicating and disturbing fantasy. Thanks to...
- 9/29/2021
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
To say that Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or win in July inspired waves of excitement across swaths of the French industry would be something of an understatement.
Indeed, to those working in genre, the fact that the “Titane” filmmaker became only the second woman director to claim one of the film world’s most august accolades follows well behind an accomplishment that they would argue puts in her even more rarified company: That she claimed such a feat from within an industry still hostile to genre itself.
“It’s not our culture,” says Grégoire Melin, producer and CEO of sales outfit Kinology. “Unlike American or Asian or English film cultures, ours is not versed in pure genre films. In France, there’s still a built in resistance to these kinds of projects. Which is very strange!”
The former sales chief at Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp, Melin has toiled in...
Indeed, to those working in genre, the fact that the “Titane” filmmaker became only the second woman director to claim one of the film world’s most august accolades follows well behind an accomplishment that they would argue puts in her even more rarified company: That she claimed such a feat from within an industry still hostile to genre itself.
“It’s not our culture,” says Grégoire Melin, producer and CEO of sales outfit Kinology. “Unlike American or Asian or English film cultures, ours is not versed in pure genre films. In France, there’s still a built in resistance to these kinds of projects. Which is very strange!”
The former sales chief at Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp, Melin has toiled in...
- 9/10/2021
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Fantastic Fest returns this September (September 23 - September 30) and had already announced a killer first wave of programming, including screenings of Titane, Lamb, and Gigi Saul Guerrero's Bingo Hell! Today, they announced their final wave of programming, which includes the world premiere of The Black Phone, and much, much more!
The entire press release is included below and you can learn more at: http://fantasticfest.com/
Austin, TX — September 9, 2021 — Fantastic Fest is proud to announce the final wave of programming for the festival’s 16th edition, featuring the widest selection of weird and wonderful films gathered from across the globe to screen in Austin, TX, from September 23rd - 30th.
“Working on this second wave has been a pure joy for the programming team,” says Fantastic Fest Director of Programming Annick Mahnert. “With films coming from as far as Senegal, Latvia, Iran and Kazakhstan, and topics ranging from teenage assassins,...
The entire press release is included below and you can learn more at: http://fantasticfest.com/
Austin, TX — September 9, 2021 — Fantastic Fest is proud to announce the final wave of programming for the festival’s 16th edition, featuring the widest selection of weird and wonderful films gathered from across the globe to screen in Austin, TX, from September 23rd - 30th.
“Working on this second wave has been a pure joy for the programming team,” says Fantastic Fest Director of Programming Annick Mahnert. “With films coming from as far as Senegal, Latvia, Iran and Kazakhstan, and topics ranging from teenage assassins,...
- 9/9/2021
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
Golden Leopard goes to filmmaker from Indonesia for first time.
Indonesia’s Edwin has received Locarno Film Festival’s top honour, the Golden Leopard, for his latest feature Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s International Competition.
The Indonesia-Singapore-Germany co-production – adapted and based on a literary work by Eka Kurniawan – is being handled internationally by The Match Factory.
It is also the first time in Locarno’s 74-year history that the Golden Leopard has gone to a filmmaker from Indonesia.
Accepting the award on behalf of Edwin, who had already...
Indonesia’s Edwin has received Locarno Film Festival’s top honour, the Golden Leopard, for his latest feature Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s International Competition.
The Indonesia-Singapore-Germany co-production – adapted and based on a literary work by Eka Kurniawan – is being handled internationally by The Match Factory.
It is also the first time in Locarno’s 74-year history that the Golden Leopard has gone to a filmmaker from Indonesia.
Accepting the award on behalf of Edwin, who had already...
- 8/14/2021
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Altered Innocence has picked up North American rights to Bertrand Mandico’s sophomore feature film “After Blue (Dirty Paradise),” which just had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. The film will make its North American premiere at Toronto Film Festival in the Midnight Madness sidebar, and the U.S. premiere will be held at Fantastic Fest.
The film takes place on the planet After Blue, where teenager Roxy unwittingly frees a dangerous criminal buried in the sand. Roxy and her mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn) are deemed responsible, exiled from their community, and sentenced to track down the killer. They start a long journey pacing the supranatural territories of their filthy paradise.
The deal was negotiated between Frank Jaffe from Altered Innocence and Grégoire Melin from Kinology.
Jaffe commented: “Beyond the fact that Bertrand Mandico’s ‘The Wild Boys’ (Les garçons sauvages) was the film that launched the theatrical arm of Altered Innocence,...
The film takes place on the planet After Blue, where teenager Roxy unwittingly frees a dangerous criminal buried in the sand. Roxy and her mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn) are deemed responsible, exiled from their community, and sentenced to track down the killer. They start a long journey pacing the supranatural territories of their filthy paradise.
The deal was negotiated between Frank Jaffe from Altered Innocence and Grégoire Melin from Kinology.
Jaffe commented: “Beyond the fact that Bertrand Mandico’s ‘The Wild Boys’ (Les garçons sauvages) was the film that launched the theatrical arm of Altered Innocence,...
- 8/12/2021
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
In the post-apocalyptic nightmare of After Blue, humanity—or what’s left of it—roams a former paradise turned wasteland. The Armageddon that wrecked the Earth in some undetermined past left no machines behind, no screens, and, perhaps most conspicuously, no men. In the distant planet the human race fled to, and which writer-director Bertrand Mandico’s film is named after, “they were the first to die,” we’re warned early on: “their hairs grew inside them, and killed them.” As it was for its predecessor, The Wild Boys, After Blue is suffused in a feverish ecstasy, that wild excitement that comes from a watching one world crumble and another jutting into being from scratch, a vision of a clean slate in which everything—and everyone—can be reinvented, and every norm challenged.
At its heart is Roxy (Paula Luna Breitenfelder), a teenage girl living with her mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn...
At its heart is Roxy (Paula Luna Breitenfelder), a teenage girl living with her mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn...
- 8/10/2021
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
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