“Zombi Child”
Cast: Louise Labeque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Milfort
Synopsis: Haiti, 1962. A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, at the prestigious Légion d’honneur boarding school, a Haitian girl confesses an old family secret to a group of new friends — never imagining that this strange tale will convince a heartbroken classmate to do the unthinkable.
What You Need To Know: Slightly similar to the 1990s film “Practical Magic,” starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, but with more darkness and West Indian sensibilities. “Zombi Child” tells the story of a young Haitian girl with a dark family secret. From brilliant Parisian director Bertrand Bonello, who most recently helmed the well-reviewed suspense thriller “Nocturama,” this horror drama blurs the line between fantasy and science fiction. “Zombi Child” is influenced by the story of Clairvius Narcisse, the only man believed to have been turned into a zombie by ancient Haitian voodoo practices and survived. We will leave you to scour the internet for the trippy details of his life, but needless to say his story has impacted both science and cinema, with famed horror director Wes Craven fictionalizing his story in the 1988 horror film “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” based on the book of the same name written by Harvard trained anthropologist Wade Davis. Balanced with a healthy dose of both fact and fiction, the spellbinding film will inevitably captivate and have you suspend your belief of what’s possible in our world.
Release Date: October 1 – Martine Olivier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrXWsMdQ6MU
“Atlantics”
Cast: Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow, Ibrahima Traoré
Synopsis: In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Suleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another.
What You Need To Know: Following a historic turn at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival with a Grand Prix win, this acclaimed French drama directed by Mati Diop, who among many other astonishingly brilliant women in film, is breaking barriers. Diop is the first black female director in Cannes Film Festival history to have a film in contention for the festival’s most prestigious award, the Palme d’Or. Niece of respected Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty, cinematic talent evidently runs in the family. Early in her career, Diop appeared in the Clare Denis film “35 Shots of Rum,” and subsequently became a fixture in French cinema, both in front and behind the camera with a turn as an actress, cinematographer, and director. Acquired by Netflix, “Atlantics” is one of many new series and films helmed by African writers and directors obtained by the streaming giant, who has detailed their desire to aggressively showcase these films globally on their platform. With the timely subject manner and the rave reviews coming out of Cannes this year, this is not a film to be missed. Check out our review here.
Release Date: November 15 – MO
“Pain & Glory”
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, Penelope Cruz
Synopsis: A film director finds himself reflecting on the decisions he’s made throughout his life as both his past and his present collide into one another.
What You Need to Know: Writer/director Pedro Almodovar is one of the most poetic and visually spellbinding filmmakers working in world cinema. “Pain & Glory” is among his most celebrated films in recent years. The newest title sounds like it’ll adhere to the themes harkened throughout the Spanish director’s career. Namely, how the past reflects our present (and future), how the sins we commit reverberate throughout generations, and how the successes —and especially the failures — of the past come back to haunt us. But, much like a ripple effect, these themes can grow stronger over time. While it’s not a new concept for the director to explore a filmmaker haunted by his past (“Broken Embraces” touched on similar topics a decade prior), if Almodovar is working his magic, it’s hard to complain. Plus, Almodovar’s better films often feature Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, and this one is fortunate enough to have them both. The former, notably, gives one of the finest performances — if not the finest — playing a not-so-subtle stand-in for Almodovar himself, in what might be one of his most personal, self-reflective movies to date. Honestly, if that isn’t enough to get you excited, what more do you need to know? Check out our Cannes review here.
Release Date: October 4. – Will Ashton
“Varda by Agnès”
Synopsis: Taking a seat on a theatre stage, French New Wave filmmaking icon uses photos and film excerpts to provide an insight into her unorthodox oeuvre.
What You Need to Know: We lost Agnès Varda earlier this year at the age of 90, but like the dutiful, prodigious cinephile she was, Varda—a Nouvelle Vague giant who provided us with cinematic classics like “Vagabond,” ” La Pointe Courte,” “Cléo from 5 to 7,” ” Faces Places” and more—Varda bequeathed us with one more film before she shuffled off this mortal coil. In a kind of goodbye, and fitting self-made tribute, Varda takes viewers through her entire remarkable career—which blended fact and fiction much earlier than most—and nearly gives a guided tour and lecture through her work. It’s so brilliantly and perhaps mischievously perfectly Varda to remind everyone, newcomers and lifelong patrons of her context in the landscape of cinema. If you don’t believe us, believe Scorsese, a lifelong fan who will likely be present at the premiere, I’d bet.
Release Date: TBD. – RP
