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Breaking News : Variety – Inarritu, Reygadas Back Emiliano Rocha Minter’s ‘We Are the Flesh’ (EXCLUSIVE)

January 25, 2016/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Inarritu, Reygadas Back Emiliano Rocha Minter’s ‘We Are the Flesh’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Tenemos la carne - We are

COURTESY OF REEL SUSPECTS

JANUARY 25, 2016 | 12:01AM PT

Reel Suspects sells post-apocalypse horror fantasy which world premieres at Rotterdam Fest

John Hopewell

Chief International Correspondent@john_hopewell

“The Revenant” director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu and Carlos Reygadas, whose 2002 debut “Japan” brought down the flag on a new generation of filmmakers that have revolutionized filmmaking in Mexico, are backing horror thriller “Tenemos la carne” (We Are the Flesh), a flagship title from another new wave of Mexican producers and directors.

Broadening its portfolio of envelope-pushing genre titles, Matteo Lovadina’s Paris-based sales company Reel Suspects has acquired world sales rights to “We Are the Flesh.” It will world premiere Feb. 2 at the Rotterdam Fest’s Bright Future section, with Inarritu and Reygadas taking a “present” credit. Post-production work was carried out at Reygadas’ Splendor Omnia ranch-facility nestling in the Mexican hills one-hour’s drive south of Mexico City. Reygadas, Splendor Omnia’s Natalia Lopez and Splendor Omnia take co-producer credits.

Mexican Emiliano Rocha Minter’s first feature, “We Are the Flesh” is set in a post-apocalypse Mexico, where a brother and sister, Lucio and Fauna, wander a ruined city for years in search of food and shelter. They find their way into one of its last surviving buildings, where a man makes them a dangerous offer to survive the outside world. As they help him transform the building into a womb-like cave, a disquieting sexual relationship emerges, along with a dynamic in which darker instincts do their destructive work.

“We Are the Flesh” is billed as a reaction to – and product of – a culture in which cruelty and lust are linked in a shocking way, as well as a poignant and provocative analysis of Mexico.

“We are very thrilled to work on Emiliano’s first feature that perfectly embodies the rise of a new wave of Mexican cinema,” Lovadina said.

He added: “We Are The Flesh’ is bold and provocative, raw and meaningful, playing with cinema genres in a very modern yet unseen way. I am sure the public will be mesmerized. Festival programmers and buyers will be intrigued by Emiliano’s visual style and direction.”

Rocha Minter broke through to attention – and revealed his technical chops and use of genre tropes with his third short, “Inside,” screened at 2013’s Rotterdam Festival, a B&W suspense-laden drama in which two young men friends dig a hole in the ground in a forest.

As his 24 thanks in IMDB suggests, Inarritu has a long history of encouragement, advice or aid to fellow Mexican and Latin American filmmakers whether Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro Reygadas or on Sundance player “The Last Elvis,” from Argentina’s Armando Bo,Inarritu’s co-scribe on “Birdman” and “Biutiful.”

Inarritu and Reygadas’ public enthusiasm for “Flesh” also links them with “Flesh” producers Julio Chavezmontes and Moises Cosio, lynchpin figures in a new second Mexican industry wave which broke through a near decade after Inarritu’s debut, 2000’s “Amores Perros.”

Debuting as a producer with “Halley,” from Sebastian Hoffman, and the lead-producer on “Flesh,” Piano’s Chavezmontes’ Mexico City producer-distributor Piano also produced “”Echo of the Mountain,” Nicolas Echeverria’s 2014 Guadalajara winner, exec produced by Michael Fitzgerald, who produced John Huston’s “The Dead.”

Chavezmontes is currently firing up an ambitious slate of movies, including Hoffman’s “Tiempo Compartido,” a step-up-in-scale follow-up to “Halley,” plus Daniel Graham’s “Opus Zero,” which will star “an important American actor,” and with Reygadas, 2012 Cannes best director winner for “Post Tenebras Lux,” again on board, this time as associate producer.

A producer on Atom Egoyan’s “Remember,” Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Cannes 2013 Directors’ Fortnight hit “The Dance of Reality” and a co-producer of Samuel Jackson-starrer “Kite,” Detalle Films head Cosio teamed in March 2015 with Gerardo Gatica and Alberto Muffelmann to launch Latino indie conglom Panorama Global.

“We Are the Flesh” is co-produced by French director Yann Gonzalez, helmer of Cannes Critics’ Week Special Screening “You and the Night.” Simplemente’s Rune Hansen and Monica Reina serve out of Mexico as associate producers, as does Celia Iturraga.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WEA04.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2016-01-25 10:11:352020-01-07 08:44:12Breaking News : Variety - Inarritu, Reygadas Back Emiliano Rocha Minter’s ‘We Are the Flesh’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Breaking News : Variety – Reel Suspects Rolls Out ‘Manieggs’ and ‘Lovemilla’ (EXCLUSIVE)

January 17, 2016/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

JANUARY 16, 2016 | 12:27AM PT

Sales underscore demand for offbeat auteur genre

John Hopewell

Chief International Correspondent@john_hopewell

PARIS – Underscoring major territory thirst for world cinema auteur genre, here laced with gleefully oddball humor, Paris-based Reel Suspects has licensed Hungary’s “Manieggs” and Finland’s “Lovemilla” to major territories in Europe and Asia and Latin America, French sales agents’ rising export markets.

A Hollywood action movie spoof and tribute whose characters are all literally eggs which reps Reel Suspects’ first animation acquisition, “Manieggs” has closed Scandinavia (Njuta Films), Russia and CIS (All Media Company), China (Lemon Tree) and South Korea (Alto Media). Per Reel Suspects’ founder Matteo Lovadina, it will be released theatrically in South Korea first quarter 2016. Deal was negotiated by sales exec Alberto Alvarez Aguilera.

Typifying Reel Suspects line in envelope pushing world cinema auteur genre, “Manieggs” turns on Johnny Cupido, wrongfully sent down by law for two weeks. He emerges from jail with sidekick Harry, in an unidentified big American city, to satiating his lust for vengeance. At a tilt action takes in a dastardly Chinese Dragon Clan, cage fights a bank robbery and, in a sub-plot, police corruption.

Directed with scatological abandon by Hungarian Zoltan Miklosy, and produced by Budapest’s Umatik Entertainment, “Manieggs” played France’s Annecy Animation Fest.

“Manieggs” sales come as Reel Suspects continues to roll out Teemu Nikki’s “Lovemilla,” a Finnish fantasy romcom seen at 2015’s Fantastic Fest. Set in an alternative universe, where some people fly, others morph into harmless-enough zombies, “Lovemilla” centers on a highly familiar couple crux: A man who goes out of his way, but the wrong way, to impress his girlfriend, whose affections he doesn’t think he deserves.

A Cannes market hit, then fest fave, “Lovemilla” has recently clinched Colombia (Cinemaran), where it is set for an early 2016 theatrical release, Japan (Transworld Associates) and Australia (SBS).

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/MAN_04.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2016-01-17 16:45:312020-01-07 08:44:09Breaking News : Variety - Reel Suspects Rolls Out ‘Manieggs’ and ‘Lovemilla’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Breaking News : Cineuropa – Blind Sun now on Reel Suspects’ slate

November 30, 2015/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Blind Sun now on Reel Suspects’ slate

by Fabien Lemercier

27/11/2015 – The feature debut by Joyce Nashawati has been acquired by the Paris-based company, which will start selling it abroad from next week at Ventana Sur

Blind Sun by Joyce Nashawati

Recently unveiled and having proved popular at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Franco-Greek co-production Blind Sun [+] has just been added to the slate of Paris-based international sales agent Reel Suspects. The feature debut by Joyce A Nashawati, the plot of which subtly plays with a strained and paranoia-riddled atmosphere exacerbated by a heatwave, was acquired by the company managed by Matteo Lovadina at the fifth Paris International Fantastic Film Festival (17-22 November), where the title was in competition. It is also worth mentioning that the film will be distributed in French theatres by Pretty Pictures(date TBC).

(The article continues below – Commercial information)

Reel Suspects will officially launch sales for Blind Sun next week in Buenos Aires, at the seventh edition of Ventana Sur (30 November–4 December). At the film market, Lovadina’s team will also be banking on screenings of Demon [+] by late Polish director Marcin Wronaand Finnish feature Lovemilla [+] by Teemu Nikki in order to entice buyers.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/16-WATER-THIEF.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2015-11-30 09:49:242020-01-07 08:44:05Breaking News : Cineuropa - Blind Sun now on Reel Suspects’ slate

Breaking News : Screen – Reel Suspects takes on Toronto title ‘Demon’

August 25, 2015/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Reel Suspects takes on Toronto title ‘Demon’

25 August, 2015 | By Melanie Goodfellow

EXCLUSIVE: Wedding-set supernatural tale to premiere in Vanguard section.

Paris-based genre specialist Reel Suspects had picked up world sales to Demon ahead of its premiere in the Vanguard section of the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20).

 It is the third feature by Polish director Marcin Wrona, whose previous award-winning work The Christening also screened in Vanguard to packed houses and critical acclaim in 2010.

“I’m really exited to work on Marcin’s third film film. It’s a perfect crossover title that fits our line-up perfectly,” said Reel Suspects CEO Matteo Lovadina.

“It combines a well mastered drama base with a supernatural element. Demon should find an audience both among cinephiles and curious genre fans alike,” he added.

ICM Partners is handling North America.

Taking inspiration from the Jewish mythological figure of the dybbuk, a malicious spirit, Demon revolves around a wedding that takes a sinister turn when the groom is possessed just prior to the ceremony.

There has been considerable buzz around the title following the release of a teaser trailer earlier this month.


DEMON // a film by Marcin Wrona // Official… byreelsuspects

Demon is a Polish-Israeli co-production involving Wrona’s Warsaw-based Magnet Man Film and Tel Aviv-based Transfax Film Productions with the support of the Polish Film Institute, the Israel Film Fund, the Kracow Film Commission, Silesia Film, Chimney Poland, Wajda Studio and Lava Films.

 Israeli actor Itay Tiran plays Python, a young man who travels to his future wife’s hometown ahead of their wedding.

The future bride’s grandfather gives him a parcel of land as a wedding gift. While preparing the land to build a house, Python discovers a pile of human bones. He decides to keep his discovery to himself but then strange things start to happen.

The cast also features Agnieszka Zulewska as the bride. The upcoming Polish actress was recently seen in the lead role of Bartosz Prokopowicz’s Chemo about an exuberant young woman dying of cancer, which premiered at Karlovy Vary in July.

Other titles on Reel Suspects’ TIFF slate include cult picture German Angst, Indian horror picture Ludo, which premiered at Fantasia and Finnish comedy Lovemilla. 

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/DEM01.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2015-08-25 12:15:432017-04-19 09:18:52Breaking News : Screen - Reel Suspects takes on Toronto title 'Demon'

Breaking News : Cineuropa – Lovemilla leads the pack for Reel Suspects

April 30, 2015/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

CANNES 2015 Market/France

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Lovemilla leads the pack for Reel Suspects

by Fabien Lemercier

30/04/2015 – A market premiere at Cannes for the zany Finnish romantic comedy and the start of pre-sales for My Peaceful Place of Exile

Lovemilla by Teemu Nikki

An eclectic line-up packed with European films for the French international sales agentReel Suspects, with four premieres at the Marché du Film of the 68th Cannes Film Festival (13-24 May 2015). Standing out among them is the Finnish film Lovemilla [+] byTeemu Nikki. Starring Milka Suonpää, Joel Hirvonen, Mari Rantasila, Matti Onnismaa, Rami Rusinen and Pyry Laakso, this production staged by It’s Alive Film is an over-the-top romantic comedy blending love, robots and bodybuilding. The plot revolves around Aimo and Milla, who live together at the house of the young woman’s alcoholic and “zombified” parents, and who are saving up in order to gain their independence. But Aimo lacks self-confidence and squanders their savings by trying to find a fast-track way to build up his muscles. As the results do not measure up to his expectations, he even begins to dress up as a robot, which is not to Milla’s liking, and so she leaves him. This break-up has some unexpected consequences…

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On the Croisette, Matteo Lovadina’s team will also be able to pin its hopes on the market premieres of Manieggs – Revenge of the Hard Egg [+] by Zoltan Miklosy (read thereview), a Hungarian animated film brimming with scathing humour, the British drama Stillby Simon Blake (toplined by Irish actor Aidan Gillen, who is world famous for playing the character of Littlefinger in Game of Thrones) and the Canadian film Surfacing by Lindsay MacKay.

At Cannes, Reel Suspects will also be launching pre-sales for My Peaceful Place of Exileby Dāvis Sīmanis, a co-production between Latvia and Lithuania (Locomotive Productions and Studio Uljana Kim), starring German actor Ulrich Matthes, Agnese Cīrule, Dmitrijs Javlovs, Leonīds Lencs and Toms Liepājnieks. The plot unfolds during the final year of World War One, and the lead character is a German military surgeon sent to inspect a convalescent home for patients suffering from post-traumatic psychosis and who attempts to restore the unusual facility to good working order.

Lastly of note on the line-up are German Angst by Jörg Buttgereit, Michal Kosakowskiand Andreas Marschall (revealed at Rotterdam – read the review in English), which will be screened at the market, the Indian fantasy film in post-production Ludo by Q and Nikon, and the Berlinale-selected The Blue Hour by Thai director Anucha Boonyawatana and Portrait of the Artist [+] by Antoine Barraud.

(Translated from French)

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/MIL_01.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2015-04-30 16:14:222020-01-07 08:44:02Breaking News : Cineuropa - Lovemilla leads the pack for Reel Suspects

Breaking News : Screen – Reel Suspects boards Aidan Gillen thriller ‘Still’

March 25, 2015/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Reel Suspects boards Aidan Gillen thriller ‘Still’

20 March, 2015 | By Andreas Wiseman

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based outfit boards international rights to UK thriller.

Matteo Lovadina’s Paris based-sales outfit Reel Suspects has acquired world sales rights to UK thriller Still, starring Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones).

The film, which premiered last year at the Galway Film Fleadh, where it won Best International First Feature award, marks the debut of writer-director Simon Blake.

The London-set thriller charts the violent disintegration of a father who is unable to come to terms with the loss of his son in a car accident.

Verve Pictures will distribute in the UK in May, while Film Movement has rights in North America.

“I am very happy to come on board Simon Blake’s debut feature, which has already proved itself on the international festival circuit,” said Lovadina.

“Aidan Gillen’s performance is incredibly powerful and compelling. The Game of Thrones fans will be delighted to experience Aidan’s vast talents, in an equally thrilling, yet very different, setting.”

Producers are Blunt Pictures and 011 Productions in association with Lipsync Productions LLP.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/STILL-078.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2015-03-25 15:43:592017-04-19 09:19:23Breaking News : Screen - Reel Suspects boards Aidan Gillen thriller 'Still'

Breaking news : Variety – Reel Suspects Draws ‘Portrait of an Artist’ (EXCLUSIVE)

January 17, 2015/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Bertrand Bonello starrer just selected for Berlin Fest’s Forum section

International Correspondent

John Hopewell

International Correspondent@john_hopewell

PARIS – Matteo Lovadina’s Paris-based Reel Suspects has boarded French director Antoine Barraud’s “Le Dos Rouge” (Portrait of an Artist), starring high-profile Gallic helmer Bertrand Bonello(“Saint Laurent,” “House of Tolerance”). Vet director Barbet Shroeder (“Single White Female,” “Murder By Numbers”) also has a cameo in the movie.

SEE MORE: UniFrance Rendez-vous

Co-starring Jeanne Balibar and Geraldine Pailhas, “Portrait” has just been selected for next month’s 65th Berlin Fest Forum section. It also screens Saturday

An auteur genre movie – Reel Suspects major speciality as a sales agent – “Portrait” turns on a renowned filmmaker who becomes obsessed by imagery of monstrosity, which he determines, will be central to his next film. Scouring for the perfect painting to illustrate his movie, he hires an art historian, plumbs the oeuvres of Bacon, Leon Spilliaert, Caravaggio, Theodore Chasseriau, Hans Bellmer and many others. But as the idea of “the monstrous” starts to take shape in is mind, a large red sore begins to fester on his back.

A tireless director-producer with a hectic one-decade career, Barraud helmed his feature film debut, “Les Gouffres” (“The Sinkholes”) with Nathalie Boutefeu and Mathieu Amalric, which screened at the 2012 Locarno Fest, along with Stephen Dwoskin’s “Age Is…,” which he produced. Barraud also co-produced with Homegreen Films Tsai Ming Liang’s “Madame Butterfly,” and helmed a long series of experimental shorts on figures such as Kenneth Anger, Shuji Terayama and Koji Wakamatsu. He directed his first short, “Monstre,” in 2005.

“I have always had a deep-felt, mysterious obsession with museums. Their apparent calm and solemnity in displaying what would be classified elsewhere as madness, psychiatry, beat-up lyricism,” Barraud said.

“Nonetheless, through time, I couldn’t avoid becoming a “hasty” visitor, more eager to “see” the paintings than actually “looking” at them. “Portrait of the Artist” took shape in an effort to counter this troubling trend. This need fused with the idea of putting together a personal panorama of monstrosity in art: The transfigured face of a young girl by Hans Bellmer, the skin disorders of a Brazilian slave in a painting by Joachim da Rocha, Leon Spilliaert’s emaciated figure in his self-portraits, the veiled and phantom-like gaze of Balthus’ “Alice”, and then Bacon, Caravaggio, and many more.

Bonello, who also scored the film, was surprised, “excited and terrified” to be offered the lead role, Barraud recalled.

“I imagined a gallery of strange and witty creatures for him to communicate with: His spouse, his producer, a historian, a young journalist and many others. The multiple faces and characters in this film are the expression of his own self. They all convey towards him. What makes this film exciting for me is the outcome of two different desires: Mine and his.

Vincent Wang, Cedric Walter and Barraud produce “Portrait”. It receives a market screening Saturday at Paris’ UniFrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/POAweb6.jpg 768 1024 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2015-01-17 19:06:472017-04-19 09:21:08Breaking news : Variety - Reel Suspects Draws ‘Portrait of an Artist’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Breaking news : VARIETY – Artsploitation takes U.S. on Reel Suspects’ ‘Horsehead’ (EXCLUSIVE)

January 15, 2015/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

‘German Angst,’ also sold by Reel Suspects, secures Rotterdam Fest berth

International Correspondent

John Hopewell

International Correspondent@john_hopewell

Matteo Lovadina’s Paris-based Reel Suspects has sold U.S rights to supernatural fantasy “Horsehead,” a French genre auteur fest hit, to Raymond Murray’s Artsploitation Films, a indie distributor specializing in unsettling art or genre film fare from around the world.

The sale comes as Reel Suspects’ “German Angst,” a horror triptych, has been selected for the Rotterdam Festival. Artsploitation aims to give “Horsehead” a limited theatrical release before its distribution on DVD and VOD.

A first feature from France’s Romain Basset, but shot in English, “Horsehead” has played many of the world’s top genre/fantasy fests, establishing its credentials among fanboys (and girls), including Austin’s Fantastic Fest, Spain’s Sitges, Mexico’s Morbido Fest, the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre meet, and Germany’s Exground Filmfest.

From Starfix Productions – and associate produced by Lovadina – “Horsehead” has already been licensed by Reel Suspects to Canada (Black Fawn Distribution), South Korea (Lumix Media) and Taiwan (Moviecloud). Lovadina said he expected more sales to close at next month’s Berlinale.

Written by Basset and Karim Cheriguene, “Horsehead” turns on a girl, Jessica, who suffering graphic nightmares from childhood, and now studies the psychophysiology of dreams. When her grandmother dies, Jessica returns to the family home, where her grandmother’s body is placed in the adjoining room.

Running a high fever, she attempts to experiment with lucid dreaming – from which some people never recover – so as to control her nightmares and confront the evil that has haunted her and her family house: An evil horse-headed monster. Gradually the boundary between dreams and reality blurs.

“’Horsehead’ is a very stylish, clever and powerful first-time feature, in the line of the ‘giallo’ movies of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, but integrating imagery in a world which the director has made his own,” said Lovadina.

French actress-singer Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux plays Jessica, Brit Catriona Maccoll – a cult actress to genre connoisseurs after starring in Fulci’s “The Gates of Hell” trilogy – limns her mother; singer-actor Murray Head (“Sunday, Bloody Sunday”) is a family friend.

“I am very happy to be working again with Artspoitation, whose great team is passionate and devoted to films, as they already proved with our previous title, ‘Vanishing Waves,’” Lovadina told Variety.

He addeds: “Horsehead’ is our cross-over star of 2014-15, arthouse genre, which we are used to selling from Reel Suspects’ beginnings. The power of those films, where the author has something to say, is that they can attract both arthouse niche and genre audiences, festivals are really supportive on this type of title, and foreign horror can generate nice numbers on VOD in the U.S.”

Another arthouse mix with genre, here sci-fi, “Vanishing Waves,” directed by Lithuania’s Katrina Buozyte, sold to Artsploitation; Kino Lorber acquired U.S. rights to Reel Suspects’ 2014 title “Patch Town,” Craig Goodwill’s comedic fairy tale.

Making its world premiere at the Rotterdam Fest’s Really? Section, which focuses on “contemporary reality,” “German Angst” is a German three-part horror movie directed by Jorg Buttgereit, whose “Nekromanitik” helped re-launch modern German horror film, Andreas Marschall, director of “Tears of Kali,” a Melies d’Argent winner, and Michal Kosakowski, whose “Zero Killed,” a controversial fiction/docu feature on murder fantasies, won best film at the 2012 Chicago Underground Festival.

Tales turn on love, horror and sex in Berlin: In Buttgereit’s “Final Girl,” a young girl lives alone in a dirty apartment, save for her guinea pig and a man, which is bound and gagged; Kosakowski’s ”Make a Wish” has hooligans attacking a young deaf-mute couple, who fight back using a powerful talisman; a man is promised the ultimate sexual experience, taking a Mandragora plant drug, which has terrible side effects in Marschall’s “Alraune.”

Rotterdam is “the perfect platform to launch the film, the audience will be surprised and shocked,” Lovadina said. The film will make its market premiere at Berlin’s European Film Market, is highly anticipated and a web buzz title,” he added.

Alamode Film/Pierrot Le Fou has acquired rights to German-speaking Europe on “German Angst.” Lumix Media and Moviecloud have also bought the movie.

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/fie-banner2.jpg 800 1280 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2015-01-15 19:07:292017-04-19 09:19:51Breaking news : VARIETY - Artsploitation takes U.S. on Reel Suspects’ ‘Horsehead’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Breaking News : Cineuropa, Reel Suspects acquires NUDE AREA

December 15, 2014/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Nude Area: the most tantric, televisual experience imaginable

by Thomas Humphrey

19/11/2014 – The movie sees Antoniak marry Nothing Personal‘s lyricism with Code Blue‘s potential for controversy; the results are visually stunning, witty and always thought-provoking

Nude Area opened the Focus on Polish Cinema section at this year’s Tallinn Black Nights Festival, and it immediately proved why we need more female directors. Many make films about lesbianism, but few take their discussion of the “L-word” as far as Urszula Antoniak‘s Polish-Dutch co-production does. In short, this film depicts a lesbian love affair that is so intense it cannot be experienced lucidly, in a linear way (and indeed, this movie is certainly not linear).

(The article continues below – Commercial information)

Instead, Antoniak divides her work into a catalogue of L-words (love, labour, limit, languor…), each acting as a chapter or “fragment” in this complex look at female desire. The result is a discussion that turns out to be universal. It becomes about how all-consuming love can be; how it can transport, overwhelm, fulfil, or even leave us unmoved. But Nude Area‘s tale of interracial love also asks some probing questions; ones that perhaps only a woman could ask aptly.

The film explores the West’s tendency to attach fetish value to Eastern culture, reifying rather than respecting it. But instead of resisting that tendency, this film cuts it open for our consideration. Additionally, Antoniak’s dissection of attitudes towards Islam carries with it a potential feminist critique: if the hijab is meant to keep a woman’s beauty private from men, what is there to stop the lass at the local, women-only swimming baths from falling hopelessly in love with you?

Antoniak really demonstrates how complex feminism amendments can become when a woman is given room to explore them. One such example is feminism’s exposure of art’s tendency to depict men as gazers, whilst women merely appear – as if they were presenting themselves for man’s objectifying looks. But Nude Area asks: what if the gazer and the observed are both women?

On this note of subjectivity and objectivity, the film opens with an epigraph taken from Roland Barthes: “[The lover] speaking within himself, amorously, confront[s] the other (the loved object), who does not speak.” Straight away, the suggestion is that Antoniak wants to take this dynamic beyond feminist territory. What we have instead is a cerebral look at human desire.

Desire proves to be an opportunity for the lover to project their wishes onto the beloved, relegating them to an object. But in this respect, Nude Area shows how little male and female desires differ. All the same, Antoniak never simply defers to Barthes’ idea. The two lead actresses, Sammy Boonstra (Naomi) and Imaan Hammam (Fama), are forever moving between empowered and passive states, subjectivity and objectivity, fragility and strength – roles that these two actresses play perfectly.

Hammam, as the object of desire, has all the annoyance of Bambi being caught in the headlights of somebody else’s passion, whilst Boonstra’s desperately searching eyes flawlessly convey the equally helpless lover, turning this almost speechless film into a revelation. Boonstra often sits before us rather like a Romantic poet: mysteriously hidden behind her fringe, flanked by books, forever elegant.

But Nude Area constantly lulls us into her Romantic states, too. We happily sit in Naomi’s rocking chair of fantasies – perhaps fantasies we all take to dizzying heights when sat on the bus. This movie relentlessly tips us out of our rockers as well, though, as it snaps us in and out of reveries, soundscapes and static images. And as a result, we never remain certain what is fantasy or fully realised fantasy; with the shift between the two sometimes being so bathetic it genuinely makes you smile.

Despite this irony, written words still unfold across the screen and lyrics flow, making poetry part of the film, despite the absence of dialogue. Images also communicate ideas metaphorically (like all the sexually charged, coursing water in this movie, for example). But water imagery coupled with shots of reflections even come to intricately suggest an unattainable, self-projected form of love… Put simply, Nude Area is just the most tantric, televisual foreplay imaginable.

See also

  • Nude Area [PL, NL] (2013) – Film Profile, Film Review
https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/NUD061.jpg 643 1030 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2014-12-15 21:25:552020-01-07 08:44:00Breaking News : Cineuropa, Reel Suspects acquires NUDE AREA

Breaking News : massive again, with 2 titles @ Sitges film festival

October 1, 2014/in NEWS /by Matteo Lovadina

Dear Friends,

Once again this year, we are happy to confirm our presence at the Sitges Film Festival ! With two features selected in competition :)

  • HORSEHEAD
  • RUIN

We would be pleased to shake hands and let you check out our latest acquisitions and future projects. We will be at the Melia from the 5th till the 9th october…

Attending in Sitges :

Matteo LOVADINA
M: + 33 6 14 45 62 78

Skype: matteolovadina

With our warmest regards,

Reel Suspects Team :)

https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/piscine.jpg 1152 2048 Matteo Lovadina https://www.reelsuspects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/logo-def.png Matteo Lovadina2014-10-01 18:47:332017-04-19 09:20:15Breaking News : massive again, with 2 titles @ Sitges film festival
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