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Buenos Aires, Argentina — Alongside a tide of pensioner rallies and a workers strike that crippled a day’s transportation, the 26th edition of the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (Bafici) managed another explosive set of diverse screenings and industry discussions that wrapped on April 13, after 13 days of cinematic indulgence.

An awards ceremony, held at La Boca’s Usina del Arte Saturday evening, ushered in the final day of the buoyant affair, Laura Casabe’s “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake,” “Under the Flags, the Sun” from Juanjo Pereira, and Tomás Terzano’s latest short “The Banner,” (“El Banner”) taking top plaudits.

The meticulously curated program coaxed throngs of cinephiles to six arthouse and mainstream venues nestled in the heart of the city’s theater district, Teatro San Martin, acting as the event’s industry hub. The Museo del Cine, south-of-center, held special screenings and events in parallel. 298 films from...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has announced a first raft of deals on Jun Li’s sexy Hong Kong-set Drama “Queerpanorama” following its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival where it bowed in the Panorama section.

The black-and-white film has been sold in North America (Dark Star Pictures), France (Dulac Distribution), Germany, Austria & Switzerland (Salzgeber) and Portugal & Spain (Filmin). Best Friend Forever are also in advanced discussions to close other key territories.

“Queerpanorama” marks Li’s follow up to “Drifting” which premiered in competition at Rotterdam in 2021 and won best adapted screenplay at the Golden Horse Awards. The film was also nominated for best picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

The plot revolves around a gay man who “impersonates men he has had sex with and brings this new persona with him to his next date. Only by pretending to be someone else can he be truly himself,...

“Queerpanorama,” the latest feature by Hong Kong filmmaker Jun Li, has been boarded by Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (“Universal Language”) ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Slated to bow in the Panorama section, the movie marks Li’s follow up to “Drifting” which premiered in competition at Rotterdam in 2021 and won best adapted screenplay at the Golden Horse Awards. The film was also nominated for best picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Set in Hong Kong, “Queerpanorama” revolves around a gay man who “impersonates men he has had sex with and brings this new persona with him to his next sex date. Only by pretending to be someone else can he be truly himself,” the synopsis reads.

Best Friend Forever will launch international sales on “Queerpanorama” at the Berlin Film Festival’s EFM.

Li said he wrote the movie “at a very dark...

Exclusive: This year’s Manchester Film Festival is set to run from March 14 – 23 and will open with a screening of The Penguin Lessons, directed by British filmmaker Peter Cattaneo and starring Steve Coogan.

Based on the best-selling memoir, the film tells the story of an Englishman’s personal and political awakening during a cataclysmic period in Argentine history, brought about by his unlikely adoption of a penguin.

Manchester will screen 37 features, including 15 UK premieres and 4 world premieres. All films will be screening in Manchester for the first time. This includes the Manchester premiere of the UK’s Oscar selection Santosh from Sandhya Suri, Sundance, and Cannes hit Good One directed by India Donaldson, and South by Southwest Audience Award Winner My Dead Friend Zoe from Kyle Hausmann-Stokes.

Other highlights include the UK premieres of Y2K, A24’s latest horror comedy starring Fred Durst and directed by Kyle Mooney, the...

Held at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX, Fantastic Fest is known as the largest genre film festival in the United States. From horror to action, wacky comedy, and everything in between, Fantastic Fest offers something for every genre film fanatic. At this year’s Fantastic Fest, we at FandomWire saw 34 feature films, and we have decided what we think are the five best films we saw — from restorations to new releases.

After we share our top five films of Fantastic Fest with you, we will also share our thoughts on some of the other films we saw at the festival, so be sure to keep reading!

Related Terrifier 3 Fantastic Fest Review — Bloody Threequel Attempts to Overexplain Its Mythos FandomWire’s Top 5 Films of Fantastic Fest 2024 5. The Guest Dan Stevens stars in the action thriller The Guest, opening in September.

Okay, this might be cheating because we knew...

Canada’s Oscar entry “Universal Language,” a critically acclaimed movie directed by Matthew Rankin, has been acquired by distributors in most major territories ahead of its North American premieres at Toronto and New York Film Festival.

Represented worldwide by Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever, the movie world premiered at this Cannes Directors’ Fortnight where it won the inaugural People’s Choice Award. Following Toronto and New York, the movie will go on to play at Fantastic Fest and Festival du Nouveau Cinema as the festival opener. “Universal Language” also won the Bright Horizons Best Film Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

“Universal Language” has been bought for France (Météore Films), Scandinavia (Njutafilms), Germany & Austria (Rapid Eye Movies), Switzerland (Outside The Box), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Cei (Universal Distribution), Japan (The Klockworx), China (DDDream), Taiwan (Hooray Films), Brazil (Belas Artes Grupo), Indonesia (Falcon Pictures) and India (Big Tree Entertainment). Benelux,...

Asia Argento and Melvil Poupaud will star in French crime thriller “Stronger Than the Devil.”

The project will be pitched for the first time at the European Film Market, attached to the Berlin Film Festival, by All Rights Entertainment, the Hong Kong, Paris and Los Angeles-based film sales agency which has picked up the rights.

The picture, which heads into production later this month, is written and directed by Graham Guit. The finished film is expected to be completed by the autumn.

Valentin, a man with a shady past but who is trying to turn over a new leaf, reunites with his estranged son Joseph and his son’s girlfriend Alice after years apart. But what seems at first like a heartwarming reunion, soon goes to hell as Jp and Mila, nefarious acquaintances of Valentin, turn up with bloody plans.

Other cast includes Marine Vacth, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Raika Hazanavicius,...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired international rights to Lenny and Harpo Guit’s new feature “Heads or Fails,” the duo’s follow-up to Sundance comedy “Mother Schmuckers.”

Now in post, “Heads or Fails” tells the story of Armande Pigeon, a queen of shenanigans in Brussels who struggles to make ends meet because she can’t stop gambling on everything, always ending up on the wrong side of luck. When she teams up with Ronnie one night, everything changes – they win it all. And when you hit a winning streak, you have to know when to stop.

Lenny and Harpo Guit’s previous film, “Mother Schmuckers,” premiered at Sundance in the Midnight section in 2021 and was critically lauded. Along with having directed numerous short films, they also have their own YouTube channel, Clubb Guitos.

“Heads or Fails” stars Maria Cavalier-Bazan, Axel Perin (“Mother Schmuckers”), Maxi Delmelle (“Mother Schmuckers”), Michael Zindel...

Lenny Guit and Harpo Guit are the masterminds behind Mother Shmuckers (Fils de Plouc), one of the most unhinged comedies to grace Sundance’s Midnight section in years. The film follows two brothers, Isaachar (Maxi Delmelle) and Zabulon (Harpo Guit), a demented Merry and Pippin duo hunting for food and their lost dog, January Jack.

The Guit brothers grew up in Paris and were educated in Belgium—where they used a first-feature film grant, handheld cameras and three weeks of hilarity to create Mother Shmuckers: a work of fiction with doc-style immediacy, an unpredictable mash-up between Dumb and Dumber, Three Stooges, The Office and Tim & Eric (but even more low-fi and self-reverential).…...

O Brother, Why Art Thou?: The Guit Bros. Get Down & Out in Bizarre Debut

Something is rotten in the state of Belgium, or so it would seem in the nonsensical and utterly out of control low brow comedy Mother Schmuckers, the debut film from Lenny and Harpo Guit, starring as what seems to be an obnoxious exaggeration of The Three Stooges ilk. Surely, there’s a subsector of cult audiences who adore this kind of humor, and if you’re a fan of items like The Greasy Strangler (2016) or Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (2012), then by all means, have at it.…...

"Would you stop acting like kids?" Dark Star Pictures has revealed an official US trailer for an indie comedy titled Mother Schmuckers, which first premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival. It also played at a bunch of other genre fests, including Fantasia and Fantastic Fest last year, finally arriving in theaters this March. Issachar & Zabulon, two brothers in their 20s, are supremely stupid and never bored, as madness is part of their daily lives. When they lose their mother's beloved dog, they have 24 hours to find it - or she will kick them out. Starring Maxi Delmelle, Harpo Guit, Claire Bodson, Fresco, and Mathieu Amalric. I've heard all kinds of weird, wacky things about this - including that it's just too dumb to enjoy. But if this kind of kooky, low brow humor is your jam, then dive right in! But if not, you may want to stay away from it.

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival got an early 25th birthday present in the form of James Gunn’s “Suicide Squad,” which will receive a special screening on Aug. 4, the day before Fantasia officially kicks off with the world premiere of Julien Knafo’s zombie thriller “Brain Freeze.” Gunn is a long-time friend of the fest, having first attended in 1997 before later returning for the Canadian premiere of his Marvel blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Fantasia also unveiled its second wave of features participating at this year’s festival, joining a raft of titles announced in May, and will announce the rest of its slate in late July along with details on several virtual events and this year’s juries.

New world premieres, joining the a six-pack announced last month, include Ruth Platt’s “Martyrs Lane,” Anna Zaytseva’s feature debut “#Blue_Whale,” Jonathan Rhys Meyers-starrer “Yakuza Princes” from filmmaker Vicente Amorim,...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has closed major territories on Hadas Ben Aroya’s daring sophomore outing “All Eyes Off Me,” which world premiered at Berlin in the Panorama section.

The drama, which is set in contemporary Tel Aviv, was sold to Film Movement for North America, and also lured buyers in France (Wayna Pitch), Japan (Klockworx), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato) and South Korea (Lumix Media).

The film weaves three stories portraying Tel Aviv’s youth and is headlined by a cast of fresh faces and up-and-comers including Elisheva Weil (“Just For Today”), Leib Lev Levin (“Blackspace”), Yoav Hait and Hadar Katz.

The plot revolves around Danny who is searching for Max at a party to tell him that she’s pregnant with his child. But Max just started a new relationship with the wild Avishag, who actually has someone else in mind.

“All Eyes Off Me” is produced by Ben Aroya,...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired “Medusa,” a timely drama directed by rising Brazilian helmer Anita Rocha da Silveira. The film will world premiere at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

“Medusa” marks Da Silveira’s follow up to her critically acclaimed feature debut “Kill me Please” which premiered at Venice in 2015 and went on to play at SXSW and New Directors/New Films, among other festivals. Da Silveira was previously at Directors’ Fortnight with her 2012 short “The Living Dead.”

Set in contemporary Brazil, “Medusa” tells the story of 21-year old Mariana, who belongs to a world where women must always look perfect. She and her girlfriends try their best to control everything and everyone around them, and that includes beating up women who have deviated from the right path. At night, their vigilante girl squad put on masks and hunt down the sinners.

“Medusa” is headlined by newcomers, including Mari Oliveira (“Kill me Please”), Lara Tremouroux,...

Brussels-based Best Friend Forever Sales has given Variety exclusive access to the international trailer for Berlin Panorama player “All Eyes Off Me,” the sexually charged sophomore outing of actor-director Hadas Ben Aroya.

Told in three distinct yet related chapters, the film begins at a party in Tel Aviv where young Danny is trying to find Max to let him know that she’s pregnant with his child. Max, however, has other things on his mind and is with his new girlfriend, trying to live up to her violent sexual fantasies for the two of them. She wants to be hit and choked, which leaves her bruised when she visits an older man for whom she dog sits.

In the trailer, all three scenarios are represented in microcosm. backed by pounding dance beats and colored with flashing lights, we find out that Danny is planning, or at least claims to be planning,...

If you thought the Dardenne brothers were the only game in town when it comes to fraternal auteur duos making unvarnished studies of life on the skids in working-class Belgium, newcomers Harpo and Lenny Guit have at least one surprise in store for you. If you’re thinking of the Dardenne brothers at all, however, the Guits’ blithely grotesque debut feature “Mother Schmuckers” will likely deliver several more.

Attempting to bring a stinky shot of John Waters recklessness to a national cinema that has rarely behaved this badly since “Man Bites Dog,” this mayonnaise-dipped gross-out exercise references “Pink Flamingos” straight off the bat with its opening scene of two adult brothers cooking up a fecal feast in the kitchen. Yet as it hobbles along from one knowingly stupid setpiece to the next, “Mother Schmuckers” mellows out into something more akin to “Dude, Where’s My Car?” — if “mellow” is the word...

Popular French theater director Jean-Christophe Meurisse is making his sophomore film outing with “Bloody Oranges,” a black comedy headlined by Denis Podalydès (“La Belle Epoque”), Blanche Gardin (“Delete History”) and Christophe Paou (“Synonyms”).

Brussels-based outfit Best Friend Forever has acquired international sales rights to the film, which is produced by Rectangle Prods. “(“It Must Be Heaven,” “Climax”) and Mamma Roman.

“Bloody Oranges” marks Meurisse’s follow-up to “Apnee,” which premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2016. Meurisse is also a well-known figure in the world of theater, having launched the Chiens de Navarre theater troupe.

“Bloody Oranges” takes place in contemporary France and weaves the stories of a retired couple overwhelmed by debt trying to win a dance contest, a minister of economy who is suspected of tax evasion, a teenage girl coming across a sexual maniac and young lawyer trying to climb the social ladder. When the shoe drops, the...

“All Eyes Off Me,” Hadas Ben Aroya’s drama which will world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, has been acquired by Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever for international sales.

Set to bow in the Panorama section, “All Eyes Off Me” takes place in contemporary Tel Aviv and weaves three stories portraying Tel Aviv’s youth. The plot revolves around Danny who is searching for Max at a party to tell him that she’s pregnant with his child. But Max just started a new relationship with the wild Avishag, who actually has someone else in mind.

The cast of fresh faces and up-and-comers includes Elisheva Weil (“Just For Today”), Leib Lev Levin (“Blackspace”), Yoav Hait and Hadar Katz.

“We fell in love with the film, how it manages to create the portrait of a fascinating woman through the eyes of three different point of view,” said Martin Gondre and Charles Bin,...

The absurd/dark comedy Mother Schmuckers, the first feature film by Belgian brothers Harpo and Lenny Guit, opens with some idiots cooking in a frying pan what appears to be a piece of shit. Although these young brothers, Issachar (Maxi Delmelle) and Zebulon (Harpo Guit himself), assure that it’s merguez. The stink in the kitchen causes their mother (Claire Bodson) to puke directly into the camera, from the vomit comes the greenish title of the movie. With a beginning like this one, it’s easy to know what kind of humor this effort deals with, however, Mother Schmuckers reaches completely unexpected places... and, on more than one occasion, fucked up ones. This is largely due to the Guits' narrative style. From the moment the mother asks the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

If you took Luis Buñuel dream logic and put it in the hands of a 14-year-old cokehead obsessed with early John Waters films, teen comedies and wild handheld camerawork, you might end up somewhere in the vicinity of Mother Schmuckers. This chaotic story — if you can call it a story — features shit-eating, thievery, vandalism, bestiality, prostitution, necrophilia and other degeneracies, all crammed into 70 minutes that feels like a lifetime.

The madness focuses on a day in the antics of Issachar and Zabulon, two very stupid brothers who are starved for both food and their prostitute mother’s love. They’re played by Maxi Delmelle and Harpo Guit, respectively, and Harpo also wrote and directed the film with his brother Lenny.

A good part of...

Some movies are slow to reveal themselves, shedding their mysterious tulip petals until nothing is left but the perfect bulb of truth from which the story sprouts. “Mother Schmuckers” — which opens with two bone-stupid adults trying to force-feed their mom a fried pan of human shit until she vomits the film’s title directly onto the camera — is not one of those movies. At just 70 minutes long, it doesn’t have the time.

Then again, you have no idea how long 70 minutes can be. Not until you’ve sat through Harpo and Lenny Guit’s feature debut, Ultimately, it betrays those influences in favor of something that feels more like a Dardenne brothers remake directed by Jake and Logan Paul (and would even if “Young Ahmed” star Claire Bodson wasn’t cast as the titular schmuckered mother).

The world is still wide enough to make room for cinema that celebrates...

In their debut feature film, directing duo Harpo and Lenny Guit craft a narrative unlike any other. Mother Schmuckers (Fils de Plouc in their native French) opens by flinging the audience helplessly into an obscene sequence involving a frying pan full of feces, and what follows manages to become far more vile. The film chronicles the exploits of dim siblings Issachar (Maxi Delmelle) and Zabulon (Harpo Guit), a pair of man-children that would give every single Adam Sandler incarnation a run for his money. The wretched pair spends their time cavorting around Brussels making one scenario of mischief to the next, without giving themselves, or the audience, much time to breathe in between. And while Mother Schmuckers may hit a sweet spot for fans of the delightfully vulgar and distasteful, it reads mostly as a film aiming only to provoke.

The plot is as follows: while out searching haplessly for something to eat,...

Starting today, the 2021 Sundance Film Festival gives us a first glimpse at the year in cinema, and this year it’s available to a wider audience than ever before in virtual form. With many tickets still available, we’re now providing our yearly trailer round-up for those interested in a preview of the lineup.

Ahead of our coverage, bookmark this page for a continually-updated round-up of trailers and clips, kicking off with Taming the Garden, A Glitch in the Matrix, Land, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Life in a Day 2020, and more.

Check out the trailers (and clips) below thus far in alphabetical order and we’ll be published reviews soon, so follow along here.

Coming Home in the Dark (James Ashcroft)

The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet (Ana Katz)

Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen)

A Glitch in the Matrix (Rodney Ascher)

In the Same Breath (Nanfu Wang...

"Did you lose him?" Clubb Guitos has revealed the first official trailer for Mother Schmuckers, a wacky new Belgian comedy premiering at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival this month. The film screens in the Midnight category, and marks the feature directorial debut of two Belgian brothers - Harpo Guit & Lenny Guit. In the film, Issachar and Zabulon, two brothers in their 20s, are supremely stupid and never bored, as madness is part of their daily lives. When they lose their mother's beloved dog, they have 24 hours to find it - or she will kick them out. "Defying traditional labels, Mother Schmuckers doesn't take itself too seriously. Instead, the hilarious observations the brothers make about life and family relationships elevate everyday occurrences. A refreshing piece of filmmaking, their fun, funny and unapologetic style, is a rare and much needed gift in these uncertain times." The film stars Harpo Guit, Maxi Delmelle, Claire Bodson,...

While the Sundance Film Festival won’t take place in person in Park City this year, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of reasons to be excited for the virtual edition kicking off January 28. One such acquisition title heating up the fest is “Mother Schmuckers,” the first Belgian film ever to play in the Sundance Midnight section. This jittery buddy comedy about two incorrigible brothers still living with their mother in Brussels has, according to sales agent Best Friend Forever, echoes of “Jackass” and John Waters. Check out the trailer, exclusive to IndieWire, below.

“Mother Schmuckers” is the feature debut of brothers Harpo and Lenny Guit, who wrote and directed the film. Here’s the synopsis from the Sundance Film Festival:

Two low-down, rotten brothers named Issachar and Zabulon are starving and can’t seem to scrounge up a meal anywhere. Things only get worse when they lose...

Bruce Labruce’s queer comedy fantasy “Saint-Narcisse” has been sold by the Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever to the U.S., along with a string of other key territories.

Film Movement has acquired U.S. rights to “Saint-Narcisse,” which was the closing film of Venice’s Giornate Degli Autori (Venice Days) and played as part of Toronto’s Industry Selects.

Best Friend Forever has also scored deals for France (Optimale Distribution), Germany, Austria and Switzerland (OUTtv – Cinemien Germany) and Benelux (OUTtv – Cinemien). Northern Banner and Az Films will release the film in Canada.

Set in 1972 Canada, “Saint-Narcisse” follows Dominic, a handsome narcissistic young man who discovers the existence of his twin brother, living in a remote monastery led by a depraved priest. Dominic sets out to save him and reunite once and for all. The two beautiful, identical brothers are soon embroiled in a strange web of sex, revenge and redemption.

A young woman recalls her childhood on a family farm in the 1980s.

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has boarded French director Hubert Viel’s rural drama Louloute, for a market launch at Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French cinema which unfolds online January 13-15.

Set between the 1980s and today, it explores a disappearing French rural life through the childhood memories of a young woman as she revisits the family farm where she grew up on the eve of its sale.

Tender childhood recollections mingle with painful memories as she recalls her parents’ battle to keep the farm working...

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired “Mother Schmuckers,” which will world premiere at Sundance. The film marks the feature debut of Lenny and Harpo Guit, and is the first Belgian movie set to play in Sundance’s midnight section.

Set in contemporary Brussels, the film tells the story of two brothers in their twenties, supremely stupid and never bored. When they lose their mother’s beloved dog, they have 24 hours to find it — or she will kick them out. The film’s cast features French star Mathieu Amalric, along with a string of newcomers such as Maxi Delmelle, Harpo Guit and Claire Bodson (“Young Ahmed”).

“We hadn’t laughed that much since ages. The film’s creativity is so refreshing; it’s full of ideas and boasts obvious cult potential,” said Martin Gondre and Charles Bin, Best Friend Forever’s co-founders. “It reminded us of John Waters in a way,...