He may be Ye to the rest of the world (among other nicknames), but to Kanye West‘s parents, he was simply their son.
02.02.2022 - 18:47 / variety.com
Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBrussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired “Coma,” the latest film by celebrated French director Bertrand Bonello (“Saint Laurent”). “Coma” will have its world premiere premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Encounters section. Weaving genre, animation and live action, the stylish movie boasts an exciting cast including Louise Labeque (“Zombi Child”) and Julia Faure (“Camille Rewinds”), with voices by beloved late actor Gaspard Ulliel, as well as Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Anaïs Demoustier and Vincent Lacoste.
“Coma” explores online behavior and content consumption through the eyes of a teenage girl who immerses audiences into her dreams and nightmares. Locked in her room, her only relationship to the outside world is virtual. Navigating between dreams and reality, she’s guided by a disturbing and mysterious YouTuber, Patricia Coma.
Bonello’s 10th feature, “Coma” was produced by Les Films du Bélier (“Diamantino,” “Heal the Living”) and My New Picture. Co-producers are Remembers Production, the animation outfit created by Ugo Bienvenu, the rising star of French comic strip. New Story will release the film in France.“’Coma’ is a masterful work, a striking dive into the psyche of a generation locked-up for two years in a world on the brink of collapse,” said Martin Gondre and Charles Bin, Best Friend Forever’s co-founders.
“While this travel could be terrifying, the film offers a new and visionary hope. This ‘surprise’ film by a major director looks like nothing we’ve seen before, and will resonate strong in Berlin for sure,” said the pair. Bonello, who is known for delivering daring movies with a political or social edge, previously dipped into genre with
.He may be Ye to the rest of the world (among other nicknames), but to Kanye West‘s parents, he was simply their son.
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from South Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.
Caitlin Quinlan In her debut feature, “Fogaréu,” director Flávia Neves interweaves the broader impact of colonialism in Brazil with a close-up tale of insidious goings on in Goiás, her home town in central Brazil. Having gained support from the CNC’s Aide Aux Cinemas du Monde, “Fogaréu” is an accomplished first film that offers a nuanced critique of power dynamics within a bold, cinematic thriller framework.
Berlin Film Festival has staged its first in-person edition since 2020, soldiering on amid a wave of the COVID omicron variant in Germany and a last-minute virtual pivot for the European Film Market. Here are our main takeaways below:Film Industry Pining For In-Person Meetings Despite the EFM being online, a clutch of buyers and sellers made the trek to Berlin where they held a mix of online and physical meetings in the Marriott and a very bare Gropius Bau.
Melbourne Film Festival Launches $100K Best Film Prize; Southern Hemisphere’s “Richest” Feature CompetitionThe Melbourne International Film Festival is introducing a feature film competition ahead of its 70th anniversary edition.
Ben Croll Thrown into uncertainty by the tragic death of star Gaspard Ulliel, production on Betrand Bonello’s “The Beast” will still go forward, the director confirmed to Variety. Bonello and Ulliel recently collaborated on the hybrid, essay film “Coma,” which premiered in Berlin’s Encounters sidebar.A sci-fi melodrama set in 1910, 2014 and 2044 and dealing with questions of reincarnation and technology, “The Beast” was set to reunite Léa Seydoux and Gaspar Ulliel, who both starred in Bonello’s 2014 biopic “Saint Laurent.” Bonello wrote the sweeping project with both actors in mind and planned to start shooting in April.While Ulliel’s sudden passing has upended that specific timeline, the filmmaker still intends to begin production later this year, telling Variety that he will likely recast the role with a non-French star.
Love letters rarely include knock-off Barbie dolls engaging in incest, but the conventional is often off the table when it comes to French director Bertrand Bonello. “Coma,” Bonello’s latest, begins with a miscellanea of incongruent images, zoomed in and blurred, an amalgamation of amorphous shapes that exacerbates the sharpness of the accompanying words.
Michael Nordine authorFew things will have you longing for an end to the pandemic like “Coma,” an experimental lockdown project from French provocateur Bertrand Bonello. If you’re the type to dread being alone with your thoughts, try being locked in a room with Bonello’s: The “Nocturama” director’s ruminations on free will, dreams and the deeper meaning of Michael Jackson’s music will have you longing to fall into a deep sleep, just so you don’t have to listen to it anymore.
An imaginative insight into an 18-year-old’s mind, Bertrand Bonello’s Berlin Film Festival Encounters strand entry Coma comes with a preface: it’s dedicated to his teenage daughter. It aims to both reflect the concerns of her generation and to reassure her that some kind of rebirth will come after the pressures of lockdown during the Covid pandemic. Coma stars just two actors in-camera, with voice work from Gaspard Ulliel, who died tragically earlier this year. Bonello’s introductory comments about loss feel particularly poignant after the death of his Saint Laurent star.
We know and love (or sometimes love to hate) their characters on screen, but now it’s time to discover all the behind-the-scenes secrets from our favourite soap stars. In our exclusive interview, Soap Stars Coming Clean, OK!'s finding out all the juicy gossip about what happens when the cameras stop rolling, as well as the actors’ favourite memories with their co-stars so far. We recently caught up with EastEnders actress Milly Zero, who plays Dotty Cotton, to chat about joining the iconic soap, her famous school friends, and how she's already started a plan to get Rylan Clark to make a cameo in Albert Square.
Christopher Vourlias Two-time Berlinale prize winner Małgorzata Szumowska (“Body,” “Mug”) will write and direct “The Gambler Wife,” a revelatory portrait of novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s wife Anna Snitkina, to be produced by Russia’s Hype Film, Variety can reveal.Adapted from Andrew D. Kaufman’s book “The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky,” the film tells the story of the courageous woman who saved the life of the Russian literary icon and, as the first Russian woman to found her own publishing house, became a pioneer in the country’s literary history.Ilya Stewart of Hype Film (“Petrov’s Flu,” “Persian Lessons”) will produce in collaboration with Polish production company Nowhere.
Cynthia Littleton Business EditorHollywood is about to stampede into Middle Earth. An array of movie, merchandising, gaming and live event rights to “Lord of the Rings,” “The Hobbit” and other titles from author J.R.R. Tolkien are coming up for auction now that the Saul Zaentz Co.
EXCLUSIVE: Amid a streaming-spurred frenzy for music catalog rights, Multimedia Music has acquired film and TV scores from nine-time Oscar nominee James Newton Howard.
Leo Barraclough International Features EditorWide has come on board to represent international sales on Slovenian-Australian writer/director Sara Kern’s debut feature “Moja Vesna,” which premieres in the Generation Kplus section at the Berlin Film Festival.“Moja Vesna” stars newcomer Loti Kovačič as Moja, a 10-year-old girl who lives with her grief-stricken Slovenian dad and pregnant 20-year-old sister Vesna in an outer suburb of Melbourne. Unable to accept the reality of her mother’s sudden death, Moja focuses on preparing for the baby while Vesna is lost in troubles of her own.Adamant and full of light, Moja carries on, hoping in vain that Vesna will eventually fill the mother-shaped hole in her life.
Had things gone a different way, Julia Roberts would have been pining over Russell Crowe and not Dermot Mulroney in her beloved rom-com “My Best Friend’s Wedding”.
Brooklyn Decker is opening up about a very personal and intimate task that she gave to her best friend on the day she gave birth.
Director Paul Hogan is opening up about the worst table read that happened for My Best Friend’s Wedding and it was between Julia Roberts, and Russell Crowe!