Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes last year, the U.S. trailer arrives today for Belgian directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains, adapted from the novel of the same name by Italian author Paolo Cognetti. The film stars Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi as, respectively, Pietro and Bruno, two childhood best friends who first meet in the Italian Alps and then re-connect later in adulthood. The Eight Mountains will be released stateside this spring by Sideshow and Janus Films. The film’s official synopsis reads: Pietro, a city boy who visits the tiny mountain village of Grana […]

Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? Our film was almost entirely shot in the Italian Alps and we knew this would be demanding. Because of the hard logistics of getting to our locations, the height at which we would be filming and because of the weather. The crew needed to be up for an adventure, and so did the cast. We only realized how true this […]

The Broken Circle Breakdown spares you no sentiment at all. It’s willfully melodramatic and all the better for it. A broad, decade-spanning tale, set in an almost unthinkably weird but remarkably compelling European subculture. Belgian filmmaker Felix Van Groeningen’s newest film, a double prize-winner at Tribeca this year, leaps into loss and love and faith amidst the story of a Dutch couple, bluegrass musicians of all things, who confront, in vastly different ways, the untimely death of their young child. Set largely in the Flemish countryside, the movie goes back and forth in time, dancing from the start of the couple’s […]