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Filmmaker Quentin Dupieux has earned a reputation for crafting surreal comedies that turn expectations upside down. His movies embrace absurdity and unexpected twists. With Daaaaaalí!, Dupieux set out to create a “fake biopic” about the legendary Spanish artist Salvador Dali.

The film stars Anaïs Demoustier as journalist Judith, who’s assigned to interview the eccentric Dali. But capturing the famously shape-shifting artist proves challenging. Dali is portrayed by multiple actors throughout, with his age changing randomly.

Dupieux crafts Daaaaaalí! as more of an homage than a straightforward biopic. It celebrates Dali’s surrealist spirit rather than claiming to be the definitive telling of his life. The director draws from Dali’s fascination with dreams and the subconscious through Daaaaaalí!’s experimental storytelling.

This review will analyze how Daaaaaalí!’s narrative structure comments on traditional biopic tropes and self-mythologizing artists. It will also explore Dupieux’s surreal approach and discussion of reality,...

A popular anime empire and a beloved manga both hit screens in North America this weekend, with The Outrun starring Saoirse Ronan, five actors playing surrealist artist Salvador Dali, and a trio of thought provoking docs new on the specialty circuit this weekend.

Also noting Columbia Pictures’ Saturday Night from Jason Reitman, which rocked its opening last week, expands in NY and LA and adds ten new markets for 21 locations total before going wide Oct. 11. The film, based on the true story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live in 1975, debuted to $270k at five theaters in NY/LA for a terrific $54k per theater average.

Moderate releases: Sony Pictures Classics’ Saoirse Ronan-starring and Nora Fingscheidt-directed drama The Outrun hits 508 screens. After a decade away in London, 29-year-old Rona (Ronan) returns home to the Orkney Islands. Sober but lonely,...

In a scene near the end of Quentin Dupieux’s Daaaaaalí!, Judith (Anaïs Demoustier), a French journalist assigned to interview Salvador Dalí, is riding the bus, in the doldrums after the latest failure to capture her mercurial subject on film. The facial hair of the man seated across from her reminds her of Dalí’s iconic mustache, and after Judith aks him if it’s an intentional homage, he retreats behind his newspaper. The front-page headline reads, “Barista Lets Off Steam on Paris Bus”—a reference to the insult that Judith’s producer (Romain Duris) calls her—with a photograph of Judith below. Dupieux then cuts to a reverse shot of her that begins as a perfect match of the photo, one of countless flourishes of dream logic in the film that subvert conventional cinematic handling of time and space.

That there are almost as many actors portraying Dalí as...

"Now it's sublime." Music Box Films has unveiled the official US trailer for the acclaimed film Daaaaaali! from wacky filmmaker Quentin Dupieux (who also premiered his latest film The Second Act in Cannes earlier this year). Quite simple, this brilliantly hilarious comedy is a wild and weird take on the iconic artist Salvador Dalí. It premiered a the 2023 Venice Film Festival last year to uproarious laughter - it was one of my favorite films of the festival. Dupieux's film is sort of about a young journalist who attempts to meet with the iconic surrealist artist Salvador Dalí on several occasions for a documentary. But it never seems to work out. To add to the confusion, multiple actors portray Dali during different scenes in the film. Starring Anaïs Demoustier, Romain Duris, Gilles Lellouche, Edouard Baer, Pio Marmaï, Didier Flamand, and Jonathan Cohen.

From “Rubber” to “Wrong” to “Smoking Causes Coughing” and “The Second Act,” eccentric French auteur Quentin Dupieux is quickly becoming one of Europe’s most prolific filmmakers akin to a Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Albeit with eccentric, often fourth-wall-breaking comedies. He had two films debut at festivals in 2023, including the heckler hostage comedy “Yannick” at Locarno and the Salvador Dalí “real fake biopic” “Daaaaaalí!” out of competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. A movie where five actors play the surrealist icon, “Daaaaaalí!” is now making its way to U.S. theaters courtesy of Music Box Films, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “For journalist Judith Rochant (Anaïs Demoustier), the assignment to interview renowned artist Salvador Dalí is a great career opportunity–if only he would agree to sit still and answer a single question. What begins as a 15-minute conversation blows up into a bonafide cinematographic documentary portrait,...

Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Daaaaaalí!,” the latest film by Quentin Dupieux whose upcoming movie “The Second Act” will world premiere on opening night at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A comedic and unpredictable tribute to Salvador Dalí, “Daaaaaalí!” premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, followed by screenings at the BFI London Film Festival and Rotterdam.

In “Daaaaaalí!,” a French journalist repeatedly meets Dalí to begin an interview for a documentary film project that never starts shooting. Anaïs Demoustier stars as a journalist attempting to pin down the eccentric and elusive Salvador Dalí, who is played by five different actors, Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï, and Didier Flamand.

Music Box Films will release “Daaaaaalí!” theatrically later this year with a home entertainment release to follow.

“We were thoroughly charmed by the playful, antic spirit of Quentin Dupieux’s film,...

French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux has been creating some pretty surreal masterpieces over the years, including Deerskin, in which Jean Dujardin’s Georges is obsessed with the tasselled loveliness of a suede jacket, and the utterly bonkers and highly entertaining Mandibles, in which two jokers find a giant fly which they hope will make them their fortune. So it was just a matter of time before this master of madness should focus his attention on the grand master of Surrealism, Salvador Dalí, the two coming together in the perfect storm that is Daaaaaali!

The film takes place in the 1980s and follows journalist Judith (Anaïs Demoustier) as she tries to pin down the artist and get an interview out of him for her documentary. Much of the film takes place in the hotel where said interview is to take place and the scenes in the hotel corridor are a joy to behold.

Salvador Dalí is walking down a hotel corridor. A hotel corridor is being walked down by Salvador Dalí. In a hotel, there is a corridor down which Salvador Dalí walks. So begins — and begins and begins – Quentin Dupieux’s giddy, glitchy altogether delightful “Daaaaaali!” (imagine the title delivered by a practiced yodeler in the middle of a morning gargle). It’s the oldest and lo-fi-est of cinematic tricks: a few simple cuts make it seem like a hotel hallway’s finite, solid space is elastic, stretching from the lift doors into carpeted absurdity. Like the film as a whole, the gag gets funnier as it gets sillier, and becomes more of a homage to the surrealist painter’s ability to warp the reality around him, the more drunken its time-loop chronology.

“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order,” said Godard,...

Daaaaaali !

A true original who never seems to be running out of zany ideas, we learned back in November that Quentin Dupieux was at it again. Featuring Alain Chabat, Anaïs Demoustier, Pierre Niney, Gilles Lellouche, Edouard Baer, Pio Marmaï, Jonathan Cohen, Hakim Jemili, Agnès Hurstel, Jérôme Niel, Marc Fraize and Didier Flamand, Dupieux’s twelve feature sounds Zelig-esque in scope. Atelier de Production’s Thomas Verhaeghe produced Daaaaaali ! which splits its time in Paris and in Spain.

Gist: This charts the story of a French journalist who meets iconic, Surrealist artist Salvador Dali on a number of occasions for a documentary project which never gets off the ground.…...

Anaïs Demoustier, Gilles Lellouche, Pierre Niney, Alain Chabat, Edouard Baer, Pio Marmaï, Jonathan Cohen, Hakim Jemili, Agnès Hurstel, Jérôme Niel, Marc Fraize, Didier Flamand and a rumored Jean Dujardin and Louis Garrel are part of the massive ensemble for Quentin Dupieux‘s next film currently in production. The oddly titled (yes there is a space here) Daaaaaali ! is, according to Deadline, going to shoot into early 2023 in Paris, the South of France and Spain. Atelier de Production’s Thomas Verhaeghe will produce. As for a film festival premiere we know not to bet against a possible Cannes showing — but Venice feels like a safer bet.…...

French director Quentin Dupieux has begun shooting his 12th feature film Daaaaaali ! with a star ensemble French cast including Alain Chabat (Smoking Causes Coughing), Anaïs Demoustier (Alice And The Mayor), Pierre Niney (Frantz) and Gilles Lellouche (Little White Lies).

The picture charts the story of a French journalist who meets iconic, Surrealist artist Salvador Dali on a number of occasions for a documentary project which never gets off the ground.

Deadline, which has been tracking this project, has heard Dali will be played by multiple different actors across the course of the film.

Dupieux, who also goes under the alias of his DJ name Mr. Oizo, announced the start of the shoot on his Instagram account on Tuesday.

Other cast members named in his post included Edouard Baer (Adieu Paris), Pio Marmaï (The Divide), Jonathan Cohen, Hakim Jemili, Agnès Hurstel, Jérôme Niel, Marc Fraize and Didier Flamand.

The post suggested...

He might not be as recognized as someone like Aki Kaurismaki, but Norwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer has carved out his own similarly distinctive niche, thanks to offbeat comedies like "Kitchen Stories" and "O'Horten." Now he's back with "1001 Grams," which will make its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the first trailer dropped today. Starring Ane Dahl Torp, Laurent Stocker, Stein Winge, Hildegun Riise, Per Christian Ellefsen, Peter Hudson, Dinara Droukarova, Christian Erickson, Didier Flamand and Magne Håvard Brekke, the movie's milieu is set in an absurdly specific area of science. Here's the official synopsis: "When Norwegian scientist Marie attends a seminar in Paris on the actual weight of a kilo, it is her own measurement of disappointment, grief and love that ends up on the scale."  There's no U.S. distributor for this one yet. Watch the trailer below.

1001 Grams

Director: Bent Hamer

Writer: Bent Hamer

Producer: Bulbul Films’ Bent Hamer

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Ane Dahl Torp, Laurent Stocker, Hildegun Riise, Stein Winge, Per Christian Ellefsen, Didier Flamand, Dinara Droukarova

A multi-character holiday film, Home For Christmas was the last we saw from Norwegian director Bent Hamer. His latest, which he has also written, sounds like a return to his sharply observed character studies a la 2007′s O’Horton.

Gist: When Norwegian scientist Marie attends a seminar in Paris on the actual weight of a kilo, it is her own measurement of disappointment, grief and, not least, love, that ends up on the scale.

Release Date: Affixed with a December 24th release in France, Hamer’s 2007 film, O’Horton, played in Un Certain Regard, and we’re thinking his latest has a possibility of playing there again.

More Top 200 Most Anticipated Films of 2014 Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #138. Rio,...

Les Choristes / The Chorus (2004) Direction: Christophe Barratier Cast: Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand, Jean-Baptiste Maunier, Kad Merad, Marie Bunel, Jacques Perrin, Maxence Perrin, Didier Flamand, Grégory Gatignol, Thomas Blumenthal Screenplay: Christophe Barratier and Philippe Lopes-Curval; inspired by the 1945 motion picture La cage aux rossignols / A Cage of Nightingales, written by Georges Chaperot, Noël-Noël, and René Wheeler Oscar Movies Kad Merad, François Berléand, Gérard Jugnot, Les choristes / The Chorus A gigantic hit in France, Christophe Barratier's feature-film début, Les choristes / The Chorus, is the newest cinematic incarnation of that age-old theme: the teacher who, through firmness, kindness, and understanding — mostly kindness and understanding — tames the savage hearts of his/her pupils. In addition to those qualities, the boarding-school teacher in Les choristes, like the one played by Noël-Noël in La cage aux rossignols / A Cage of Nightingales back in 1945, also brings music into the lives [...]...