Lucile Hadžihalilović: Last News

Stephen Saito Somewhere in a cinematic landscape that includes Yorgos Lanthimos and Lucile Hadžihalilović lies Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak’s “Glorious Summer,” a sun-soaked allegory filled with dread in which the customs of a curiously cloistered culture begin to be questioned. The Polish filmmakers go out of their way not to specify where in the world they are as they tell of three young women under surveillance who start to develop their own judgment inside a dilapidated mansion that’s the only home they’ve ever known, but they’ve made a beguiling debut feature that looks to put them on the map in other respects.

EXCLUSIVE: Yellow Veil Pictures has acquired all North American rights for Lucile Hadžihalilović’s dark fairy tale The Ice Tower, following its buzzy world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. 

What is it with Lucile Hadzihalilovic and ice? In her last film, Earwig, her central character was a browbeaten little girl without teeth who had to submit to wearing ice dentures, suspended from a cruel metal frame, all day. Her new film turns up the freezing unit to 11 in a long riff on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, moving between the white peaks of the French Haute Savoie, an ice rink and a film set where a version of The Snow Queen is being filmed in what appears to be real snow. It certainly sounds real as Jeanne (Clara Pacini), the young girl Hadzihalilovic sends out into this endless cold, crunches it underfoot.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic A film set is no place for little girls. In the fairytale-adjacent world of Lucile Hadžihalilović’s frigid dark fantasy “The Ice Tower,” an orphan runs away from her foster home and takes refuge in the basement of a movie studio, finding herself drawn to the production — and its star, played by Marion Cotillard — the way a child in a Hans Christen Anderson story might be lured into the clutches of a wicked enchantress.

Marion Cotillard shared that, while she plays the enigmatic Cristina in her film (‘La Tour de Grace’), she found herself intimidated by her young co-star Clara Pacini as the pair prepared to work on the movie.

Ben Croll Two decades after their last collaboration, Marion Cotillard reunites with filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović for “The Ice Tower,” a fractured fable that lifts as much from the work of Hans Christian Andersen as from Hadžihalilović’s formative years. Premiering in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, the 1970s-set film follows a young orphan who falls into an hypnotic — and soon reciprocated — obsession with a film star shooting an adaptation of Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” “All my films are fairy-tales,” says Hadžihalilović. “I don’t care to situate my stories in an everyday reality or a contemporary timeframe; whereas the storybook form comes naturally, allowing for poetry and escape.” Cotillard, of course, plays that regal film star — “a cold, cold woman,” per the director — who doubles as a vision of glamour and a taste of something altogether more acrid.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Norwegian director Thea Hvistendahl’s zombie movie “Handling the Undead,” premiering at Sundance and to be released in the U.S. by Neon, sees the reunion of Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, the stars of Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World,” in a poetic, visually-charged chronicling of a hot summer’s day in Oslo when the dead mysteriously come back to life.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After starring in Mona Achache’s “Little Girl Blue” which played at Cannes, Marion Cotillard will work with another daring French female auteur, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, on her next film “La tour de glace.” The long-gestated film marks the first collaboration between Hadzihalilovic and Muriel Merlin (“France,” “The Truth”), producer at 3B Productions. Hadzihalilovic’s follow up to “Earwig,” which won the jury prize at San Sebastian, “La Tour de glace” is expected to be the director’s most accessible and ambitious film to date. The movie will reteam Hadzihalilovic with Cotillard who had starred in her 2004 film “Innocence.” Co-written by Geoff Cox, “La tour de glace” is set in the 1970s and follows Jeanne, a teenage girl who runs away from her orphanage located in a mountain village. She flees to Paris with big dreams to fulfill and finds shelter in a warehouse which turns out to be used as a studio where The Snow Queen is being filmed. The film’s star, Cristina, a beautiful woman in her forties, takes Jeanne under her wing, exerting a dangerous and overpowering influence over the young girl she sees herself in.

Marta Balaga SEO: Petit Film boards Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s ‘Hot Spot’  DESCRIPTION: Paris-based Petit Film boards ‘Hot Spot’ by ‘The Silent Twins’ director Agnieszka Smoczyńska By MARTA BAŁAGA Paris-based Petit Film has boarded “Hot Spot” by Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska.  The story, set in the near future, follows a disillusioned private eye Djonny, called to investigate a murder at a refugee camp. But he becomes increasingly unstable as he confronts a cyber witch who gradually takes control of his life. 

Christopher Vourlias Croatian writer-director Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” an emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt, took the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which wrapped a record-setting 2022 edition in the Bosnian capital on Friday night.The Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film was given by a jury headed by Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise (“The Great Freedom”), which included French filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (“Earwig”), Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Serbian actor Milan Marić (“Dovlatov”) and Israeli producer and consultant Katriel Schory.“Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story — a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo. Fresh off a triumphant world premiere in Locarno, where the film won three awards including best first feature, “Safe Place” was described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as a “supremely poised and moving first feature” and a “shattering” debut, “with a long trail of further festival bookings surely ahead.”Ukrainian director Maryina Er Gorbach was named best director for “Klondike,” which portrays the brutal realities of the war unfolding in Ukraine’s Donbass region through the lens of a pregnant farmstead owner whose life and home fall apart.

Eight films battled it out in competition at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, but Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s jury—including French director Lucile Hadžihalilović , Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Serbian actor Milan Marić and Israeli producer Katriel Schory—spread the love quite widely.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticFrom its opening shot — a closeup of the nautilus-like curl of a human ear — Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s “Earwig” sets out to unsettle, slowly burrowing its way into our brains by any orifice it can. Not quite a horror film, this sometimes freaky, often frustrating third feature from the French art-house director of twisted socialization tales “Innocence” and “Evolution” (better known in some quarters as the producer and partner of Gaspar Noé) is light on dialogue, and therefore, largely lacking in explanations for the haunting ideas in store.Hadzihalilovic is a master of atmosphere and tone, but someone not terribly interested in good, old-fashioned narrative.

Austrian writer-director Sebastian Meise has been named president of the Jury at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival. He’ll be joined on his jury by screenwriter and producer Lucile Hadžihalilović, writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, actor Milan Marić and producer and senior consultant for international co-productions Katriel Schory.

Naman Ramachandran The 28th Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled the jury of its feature film competition jury.Director and screenwriter Sebastian Meise will serve as jury president and fellow jurors include director, screenwriter and producer Lucile Hadžihalilović, writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, actor Milan Marić and producer and senior consultant for international co-productions Katriel Schory.Meise debuted with “Still Life,” which premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and won several awards. His documentary film “Outing” was presented at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.