Gaspar Noé's Next Film Is 'Psyché,' New Details Emerge

There are few provocateurs in modern cinema quite like Gaspar Noé. The filmmaker stunned audiences with the intense rape drama “Irreversible,” tried to give them seizures with “Enter The Void,” and pushed himself to the edges of pornography with “Love.” Now, the director is setting up his next picture and is staying decidedly #OnBrand.

Details of the project, titled “Psyché” (yep, psyche) have emerged from funding group Tax Shelter Belgium, and fan site Les Temps Detruit Toups. Budgeted at €2.6 million (or about $3.1 million U.S.) the film will take viewers back to the ’90s, with another story about drugs, perception, and madness. You know, the usual. Here’s the synopsis:

In the mid 90’s, about twenty urban dancers joined together for a 3-day rehearsal in a closed down boarding school located at the heart of a forest, to share one last dance. They then make one last party around a large sangria bowl.

Quickly, the atmosphere becomes charged and a strange madness will seize them the whole night. If it seems obvious to them that they have been drugged, they neither know by who nor why. And it’s soon impossible for them to resist to their neurosises and psychoses, numbed by the hypnotic and the increasing electric rythm of the music… While some feel in paradise, most of them plunge into hell.

The picture is set for an incredibly brief two-week shoot, and if I understand things correctly, the first cut could be ready by June. So, could there be a new Gaspar Noé film on the festival circuit by the end of the year? Possibly. That said, Tax Shelter Belgium does say that filming is supposed to be wrapped this month, but with no announced cast members, it’s unclear if it has already gone into production on the sly or has been delayed. Either way, Noé has something brewing, and it’s likely to melt your eyeballs again.