Festival du nouveau cinéma picks

The 46th edition of the Festival du nouveau cinéma is making quite a splash this year, landing the world premiere of Denis Villeneuve’s hotly anticipated Blade Runner 2049, along with its usual slate of recent festival favourites, selections from across the globe, and deep dives into genre and experimental territory with their Temps Ø programming.

Apart from the invite-only Blade Runner 2049 premiere, below are our picks for this year’s festival, running from October 4 – 15, 2017. For tickets and the complete schedule, visit nouveaucinema.ca.

Les Affamés

Quebec filmmaker Robin Aubert returns with this haunting look at a zombie outbreak in rural Quebec. Also featuring an appearance by Marc-André Grondin (C.R.A.Z.Y.), don’t miss this glimpse of the apocalypse chez nous.

Bangkok Nites

Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa offers up a pulsing look at the sex trade industry in the Thai capital with this stylish 3-hour drama, which also features excursions out to Laos and Japan.

Before We Vanish

Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse) makes his first venture into straight-up sci-fi with Before We Vanish, a contemplative alien invasion drama in which the aliens begin assimilating the human population to plan for their eventual dominance.

The Florida Project

After making a huge splash with his iPhone-shot Tangerine film back in 2015, director Sean Baker returns with a much larger budget (and real cameras) with The Florida Project, a coming-of-age story of a young girl and her mother living in a cheap hotel just outside Disney World. William Dafoe stars as the manager of “The Magic Castle” budget hotel. Check out our interview with Sean Baker about the unorthodox making of Tangerine here.

Jupiter’s Moon

Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó’s follow-up to the acclaimed White God turns the superhero genre on its head with the story of a Syrian refugee who discovers he has superpowers after being shot at while attempting to cross the border. This definitely isn’t your standard Marvel fare.

KFC

This one looks absolutely bonkers. A hallucinogenic Vietnamese cannibalistic tale centered around a KFC, one review mentions that the film contains “cannibalism, amputation and torture, kid violence, necrophilia, and even flesh-eating worms.” If you’re ready to take the plunge, this looks to be one of the most out-there showings at FNC this year.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

After blowing minds with The Lobster, director Yorgos Lanthimos returns with this supernatural thriller that many are citing as one of the most disturbing films in years. Re-uniting Lanthimos with the star of The Lobster, the film features Collin Farrell, Nicole Kidman and Alicia Silverstone in the story of a cardiac surgeon (Farrell) who develops a relationship with a teenage boy that begins to take on very disturbing dimensions.

Loveless

Following 2014’s Leviathan, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev returns with Loveless, the 2017 Cannes Jury Prize winner that focuses on the dark breakup of a family unit in contemporary Russia.

Lucky

In one of his final roles before passing away this year, 91-year-old Harry Dean Stanton (Paris, Texas, Alien, Repo Man) stars as Lucky, a cantankerous, fiercely independent man at the end of his life. With obvious similarities to Stanton’s own life, this should be a bittersweet tribute to one of the best actors of his generation.

Wonderstruck

Director Todd Haynes (Carol, I’m Not Here) returns with the whimsical Wonderstruck, featuring dual stories of teenage runaways set 50 years apart, in 1927 and 1977. Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and 12-year-old Oakes Fegley star.

FNC runs from October 4 – 15, 2017. For tickets and the complete schedule, visit nouveaucinema.ca