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Starpower isn’t a trait that has been associated, in recent years, with Edinburgh’s International Film Festival. The event didn’t sustain any real drop in quality or reach, but has rather been a victim, like other summer festivals, of the tightening grip the fall period has on our industry.

This year, however, festival director Paul Ridd, in his sophomore year at the helm, has compiled, along with his growing team, an intriguing lineup packed with high-profile names from across the industry, many of whom rarely speak or appear publicly.

2025 Eiff visitors include producer Adele Romanski (Moonlight), who will appear alongside filmmaker Eva Victor. The festival will hold the UK premiere of Sorry, Baby, Victor’s debut feature as a director, and the latest film produced by Romanski for Pastel, the company she created with Barry Jenkins and Mark Ceryak. The Sixteen Films team, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, and Rebecca O’Brien,...

The Catechism Cataclysm‘s Todd Rohal, Kill List‘s Ben Wheatley and scribe Bryan Fuller‘s long-awaited directorial debut are part of the big surprises for this year’s Midnight Madness slate which will be book-ended by some Canuck filmmakers with Matt Johnson opening the section with SXSW preemed Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie and Grace Glowicki‘s Sundance preemed Dead Lover (closing film). Rohal is back with Steve Little and Robert Longstreet for Fuck My Son! and Wheatley lassoed Bob Odenkirk once again to play a temporary sheriff in a pure action movie simply titled Normal. Fuller’s Dust Bunny follows an eight-year-old girl who asks her neighbor for help to kill the monster under her bed who ate her family.…...

The Toronto International Film Festival announced today the TIFF 2025 selections for the highly regarded Midnight Madness program, its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb the Festival’s devoted and raucous late-night crowd.

The 2025 edition features seven World Premieres and is bookended by two of the year’s most acclaimed midnight comedies. Midnight Madness opens with the Canadian Premiere of Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, based on Johnson’s cult Viceland series and recipient of the Midnighter Audience Award at this year’s SXSW. Horror-comedy Dead Lover closes out the fest’s midnight section.

Also look for Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny, Ben Wheatley’s latest shoot-out feature Normal starring Bob Odenkirk, and a ton of bone-crunching and over-the-top genre benders to round out this year’s midnight slate.

Here’s the TIFF 2025 Midnight Madness lineup:

Dead Lover | Grace Glowicki...

The program for the Toronto International Film Festival continues as Variety has passed along their unveiling of screenings for their Midnight Madness slate. The Midnight Madness line-up is a late-night presentation of more irreverent films that is akin to a modern-day grindhouse. The press release dare you to “bear witness to the very best and most bizarre in contemporary genre and shock cinema. Its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb.” All of the films featured will be making their premieres in some way, whether it be a world premiere, a Canadian premiere or an international premiere. And one of the films featured is the Bob Odenkirk action film Normal.

The movie is written by John Wick and Nobody screenwriter Derek Kolstad, and Ben Wheatley takes up the directing duties with this one. The film finds Odenkirk playing Ulysses, a lawman “who is thrust into...

The Toronto Film Festival has selected the lineup for this year’s Midnight Madness sidebar that includes seven world premieres. The pics, whether they’re slashers, comedies or hard-r action titles, close out each of night of the festival with 11:59 p.m. screenings at the Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Of note is the world premiere of Ben Wheatley’s reunion of the Nobody franchise team of Bob Odenkirk, scribe Derek Kolstad and producer Marc Provissiero for Normal. Movie tells the story of Ulysses (Odenkirk), a substitute sheriff in a small, forgotten town who responds to a bank robbery, only to unknowingly uncover something far more explosive. Wheatley’s Brie Larson action movie Free Fire won the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award in 2016.

Also world premiering is Dust Bunny, the feature directorial debut of TV showrunner Bryan Fuller. In the horror drama thriller, an 8-year-old girl asks...

Calling all nocturnal movie lovers: The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its midnight madness slate, a lineup of often disturbing and always raucous works of cinema.

Director Matt Johnson’s gonzo time-travel caper “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” will open the Midnight Madness section while “Dead Lover,” a zany, macabre horror-comedy from Canadian director Grace Glowicki, will be the closing night film.

Midnight Madness concludes each night of TIFF with 11:59 p.m. screenings at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, where the bold and brave gather at very late hours to “bear witness to the very best and most bizarre in contemporary genre and shock cinema,” according to the festival’s official press release. “Its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb.”

This year’s Midnight Madness section will host seven world premieres and one international premiere. Among the world premieres is Ben Wheatley’s “Normal,...

The Toronto International Film Festival has set seven world premieres, one international premiere and two Canadian debuts to screen in its Midnight Madness section.

Among the world premieres are Normal, a crime thriller from UK director Ben Wheatley (winner of the Midnight Madness People’s Choice award in 2016 for Free Fire), with Bob Odenkirk starring, and Dust Bunny, a whimsical horror thriller that marks the feature directing debut of US television showrunner Bryan Fuller and reunites him with the star of his Hannibal series Mads Mikkelsen.

Also making their global debuts are Kenji Tanigaki’s Hong Kong martial arts thriller The Furious,...

Bob Odenkirk, Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver are among the stars who will appear in the creepy and campy films of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section, TIFF organizers announced on Thursday.

The section will consist of 10 films, seven of them world premieres, two Canadian premieres and one international premiere.

The seven world premiere films include Ben Wheatley’s “Normal,” starring Odenkick as a small-town sheriff; and Bryan Fuller’s “Dust Bunny,” with Mikkelsen and Weaver in the story of an 8-year-old girl hunting the monster she says is under her bed. The international premiere will be “Junk World,” an animated film from Japanese filmmaker Takahide Hori.

The section will open and close with the Canadian premieres of films from Canadian directors. Matt Johnson’s “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” which won the midnight madness award at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, will open the program,...

Midnight Madness, it’s almost your time. The Toronto International Film Festival has today announced the lineup of its “signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb the festival’s devoted and raucous late-night crowd.” One of the most beloved aspects of the festival, the annual assortment of tricks and treats is a feast for the genre-devoted and generally curious alike.

Midnight Madness will open with the Canadian premiere of Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.” The film is based on Johnson’s cult “Viceland” series, and is billed as a “hysterical, death-defying time-travel caper.” The section will close with “Dead Lover,” a “zany, macabre horror-comedy from Canadian director Grace Glowicki.” The 2025 edition features seven world premieres and one international premiere.

The section closes out each night of the festival with 11:59 p.m. screenings at the (possibly) haunted Royal Alexandra Theatre,...

Producer and showrunner Bryan Fuller, known for creating Hannibal and American Gods, is bringing his directorial debut, Dust Bunny, to the Toronto Film Festival for a world premiere as part of the Midnight Madness section.

The horror thriller stars Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver, and portrays a young girl asking her neighbor for help killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family. Fuller is headed to Toronto amid the backdrop a 2023 lawsuit brought by fellow Queer for Fear producer Sam Wineman that alleged a hostile workplace environment on set. The next arbitration hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 2026.

The 2025 edition of the nocturnal Midnight Madness sidebar, with seven world premieres, will open with Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which bowed at SXSW, and will close with Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover, a horror comedy about a lonely gravedigger...

La nueva edición tendrá como eje temático el cruce entre el humor y lo fantástico. © Sitges

Apuntad en vuestra agenda cinéfila: del 9 al 19 de octubre, la ciudad costera de Sitges volverá a metamorfosearse en la capital del cine fantástico. Hoy, durante la rueda de prensa celebrada en la Fàbrica Moritz Barcelona, Ángel Sala y Mònica Garcia i Massagué, Director Artístico del Festival y Directora de la Fundación, respectivamente, han ofrecido el primer gran anticipo de la programación del Festival de Sitges 2025, con el cruce entre el humor y el género fantástico como hilo conductor.

En su edición número 58, el Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya inaugurará con Alpha, el nuevo largometraje de la cineasta francesa Julia Ducournau, que se convierte en la tercera mujer en inaugurar Sitges después de que lo hicieran Mary Harron y Ana Lily Amirpour. Esta vez, su nueva película explora un mundo distópico que funciona...

Oh, dead lovers, from Shakespeare via the Romantic poets and novelists to melancholic gothic metal texts of the 90s… Yes, the roots of inspiration for the actress Grace Glowicki’s sophomore feature as a filmmaker can be traced almost all the way back. Dead Lover has been on a tour of festivals since the premiere at Sundance’s midnight section and we managed to catch it on Karlovy Vary’s Afterhours programme. It will go on to play in Edinburgh's Midnight Madness section next month.

Glowicki opens her film with a quote from Mary Shelley, setting the gothic tone with a comedic twist. A gravedigger (Glowicki herself) feels lonely because she cannot find a partner due to her smell of dirt, corpses and death. Perfumes she concocts do not help much either. It seems that her luck is about to change when a promising young opera singer (Leah Doz) suddenly becomes her “client”. The.

The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) will feature key Cannes Film Festival winners in its Horizons section and a selection of action and horror movies, both new and older, for its revamped Midnight Screenings program under the new name “Afterhours.”

In a lineup update unveiled on Friday, Kviff said it will this year screen more than 130 feature films in the picturesque Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The Horizons lineup, which traditionally features highlights from the festival circuit of the past year, includes the likes of Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, Tom Shoval’s A Letter to David, Michel Franco’s Dreams, My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies Jr., Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, and fellow Cannes...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bonjour Tristesse (Durga Chew-Bose)

There was slight trepidation going into Bonjour Tristesse. Justifying itself as another “adaptation” of Françoise Sagan’s text rather than remake of Otto Preminger’s masterpiece of mise-en-scène, there’s still some hesitation about the chutzpah that must go into thinking you can top that great craftsman at the height of his power. As directed by writer-turned-filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose with a great deal of formal assurance, this 2024 iteration is a highly respectable effort that’ll speak to countless people the original didn’t. One major difference being that Preminger made the film as a showcase for the muse he was having an affair with, Jean Seberg, casting some leering-male element onto the whole project. Chew-Bose’s project isn...

Exclusive: UK outfit Lightbulb Film Distribution has picked up three Sundance movies out of the Cannes market.

From Paris-based WTFilms, the company has acquired Touch Me (pictured above), the psychosexual horror-comedy which premiered at Sundance Midnight and then played SXSW.

Written and directed by Addison Heimann (Hypochondriac), Rustic Films’ duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Something In The Dirt) serve as executive producers on the film starring Olivia Taylor Dudley (The Magicians) and Lou Taylor Pucci (Moon Manor). The movie sees best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist, who may or may not be trying to take over the world.

Lightbulb has also added Grace Glowicki’s Sundance Midnight title Dead Lover to their line-up. Written, directed by and starring Glowicki (Booger), the film stars Ben Petrie, Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow in numerous roles.

In Dead Lover, a lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man,...

Honey Bunch opens with Diana (Grace Glowicki) waking from a coma so deep she can’t recall her own name. Her husband, Homer (Ben Petrie), has arranged for an experimental regimen at a remote clinic—think strobing lights in a manor house that could double as a funhouse of forgotten dreams.

Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer channel the spirit of Seventies psychological horror, where every zoomed-in portrait and hushed corridor implies an unspoken threat. Adam Crosby’s lens bathes rooms in a muted haze, suggesting that reality itself might be on the treatment table.

At its center lies a trio of questions: What becomes of identity when memory unravels? Can love survive the bleaching away of shared history? And who holds the right to reconstruct a person?

The film’s premise feels almost outrageous—an ode to both experimental psychiatry and marital codependency—but it gains gravity from its philosophical underpinnings. Is...

A visually arresting creation mixing traditional Gothic elements with inventive dark humor opens this film, centered on a solitary gravedigger determined to reanimate her deceased love. The story quickly paints a picture of a character caught between her culturally rooted past and an experimental future, underscored by unconventional methods and offbeat rituals. The narrative frequently recalls classic horror motifs while drawing inspiration from varied cultural traditions, presenting an intriguing hybrid of folklore and theatrical spectacle.

The film employs a handcrafted aesthetic marked by practical effects and a minimal yet striking use of lighting. Its appearance, reminiscent of low-budget stage productions, channels influences from local cinematic practices as well as international art forms known for their eccentric storytelling. At its visual core, the film creates a dialogue between age-old myth and the modern necessity to reinterpret human connections through unconventional reinventions.

Grace Glowicki, taking on multiple roles as writer, director, and performer,...

Diana (Grace Glowicki) has adored Homer (Ben Petrie) since the first moment she set eyes on him. He’s her funny-looking guy. But does he feel the same way? She’s younger, more conventionally attractive. She knows those things were part of what attracted him to her. What will happen when she gets old? What if she gets ill? Will he still love her then? These thoughts haunt her. They argue in the car. It’s one of the last things she remembers.

After the accident, nothing is the same. Memory is fuzzy and she just doesn’t feel like herself. Homer, thankfully, is unscathed, and assures her that the new treatment will get her through it. As they approach the clinic, in a remote manor house surrounded by sprawling gardens, she sees a man helping an unsteady woman to leave. This is the 1970s, and she has visions of Stepford.

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2023 IFFR coverage. The Heirloom is now in theaters from Factory 25.

In The Heirloom, a couple facing lockdown decide to adopt a pet. It’s wintertime in Toronto, and Eric and Allie are chipping away at their Covid-restricted lives. Eric, a screenwriter, has hit a block. Together they goof around until Allie eventually asks the eternal question: why don’t we get a dog? Heirloom is the first feature of Ben Petrie, who is credited as director, editor, writer, and producer. He also stars in the film alongside his longtime creative partner Grace Glowicki, who also co-produced it––making The Heirloom not quite a Petrie-dish. What’s more, they have to share the screen with Milly, an auburn whippet rescue dog from the Dominican Republic whose cautious eyes and darting movements often steal the show.

Much like Milly, Petrie’s...

Another SXSW Film Festival has drawn to a close, and with it comes our final dispatch from this year’s insanely packed fest for genre premieres and anticipated titles.

Among the fest’s highlights this year were Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road, an inventive genre-bender that begins as a road thriller before slyly morphing into something else entirely. The high concept haunted house movie Good Boy will make you fall hard for one of the best dog actors to come along in a while, while The Surrender presents grief through a visceral, violent lens.

As for headliners, directors Christopher Landon and Eli Craig delivered festival crowd pleasers with Drop and Clown in a Cornfield respectively, while Death of a Unicorn‘s sense of humor proved more divisive.

Catch up on all of our SXSW 2025 coverage and reviews here.

Our final dispatch from SXSW 2025 offers a review roundup that highlights some...

Honey Bunch Photo: Berlin International Film Festival

A woman with no memory. A mysterious private clinic, based in a remote house with sprawling gardens. A secretive doctor who offers experimental treatment, and a wife (Grace Glowicki) who loves but doesn’t trust her older, academic husband (Ben Petrie). Honey Bunch, which screened at Berlin 2025, has all the ingredients of a classic horror movies, yet it ends up going somewhere quite different. To begin to talk about how it does so would be to give too much away, so when I spoke to directors Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer during that festival, we decided to begin by discussing the tropes the film employs.

“The first one that comes to my mind is the housekeeper, the staunch housekeeper who's keeping their master's secrets,” ventures Dusty.

“And who's often nefarious and fills the role of the villain,” Madeleine points out.

“Yeah. So we've...

Honey Bunch Photo: Berlin International Film Festival

A woman with no memory. A mysterious private clinic, based in a remote house with sprawling gardens. A secretive doctor who offers experimental treatment, and a wife (Grace Glowicki) who loves but doesn’t trust her older, academic husband (Ben Petrie). Honey Bunch, which screened at Berlin 2025, has all the ingredients of a classic horror movies, yet it ends up going somewhere quite different. To begin to talk about how it does so would be to give too much away, so when I spoke to directors Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer during that festival, we decided to begin by discussing the tropes the film employs.

“The first one that comes to my mind is the housekeeper, the staunch housekeeper who's keeping their master's secrets,” ventures Dusty.

“And who's often nefarious and fills the role of the villain,” Madeleine points out.

“Yeah. So we've...

The 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival announced its award winners on Wednesday night, with Slanted from Amy Wang chosen as this year’s narrative feature winner.

“This unflinching satirical thriller examines racial identity in a bold and skin-tingling new way. Featuring simmering performances by the cast, this film is both specific to the fractured identity of Asian Americans and universally relatable in its theme of desperately needing to belong,” said narrative feature jury members Clayton Davis (Variety), Rebecca Ford (Vanity Fair), and Ryan Lattanzio (Indiewire) in a joint statement. “The director’s vulnerability in mining her personal experience combined with her delicate and daring filmmaking create a haunting piece that lingers long after the credits roll.”

The narrative feature jury also awarded special honors to Annapurna Sriram for her film F--ktoys and actress Amanda Peet (Fantasy Life).

“Annapurna Sriram is a visionary force, a rare artist whose work is as daring as it is singular.

Shifting the attention from starry premieres at Austin’s Paramount Theatre to the independent film and TV projects that make up the majority of its lineup, the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival has announced the jury awards for its 2025 edition.

Amy Wang’s “Slanted” won the narrative feature competition, rewarding the tonal and thematic audacity of a high school comedy with boundary-pushing “The Substance” vibes. Wang, who also wrote the upcoming “Crazy Rich Asians” sequel, challenges beauty standards in a culture that idealizes whiteness, imagining a Chinese American teen (Shirley Chen) so desperate to be elected prom queen that she undergoes a radical identity-reconstruction procedure (she’s played by Mckenna Grace post-operation). The insecure teen immediately enjoys the perks of white privilege, but isn’t at all prepared for the downsides.

“This unflinching satirical thriller examines racial identity in a bold and skin-tingling new way,” said the jury, praising...

The South by Southwest Film & TV Festival announced its award winners for the 2025 festival, with “Crazy Rich Asians” writer Amy Wang’s film “Slanted” winning the top prize in the Narrative Feature Competition.

IndieWire’s review called Wang’s body horror high school film a combination of “Mean Girls” and “The Substance.” The film is seeking U.S. distribution.

The narrative feature jury, which included IndieWire’s own Executive Editor Ryan Lattanzio, also gave Annapurna Sriram’s “Fucktoys” the Special Jury Award for a Multi-Hyphenate, while Amanda Peet won the Performance award for her work in Matthew Shear’s debut film “Fantasy Life.” Benjamin Flaherty’s film “Shuffle” won the top Documentary prize.

Neon also awarded a special prize to director Grace Glowicki of “Dead Lover,” which just picked up distribution out of SXSW after it initially premiered at Sundance.

Check out the full list of SXSW winners below:

The...

SXSW announced the winners of its film and television jury and special awards on Wednesday night, with Amy Wang’s Slanted earning Narrative Feature Competition honours and Shuffle by Benjamin Flaherty taking correponding documentary honours.

The Narrative Feature Competition Special Jury Award for a Multi-Hyphenate went to Annapurna Sriram forFucktoys, while Amanda Peet won the Special Jury Award for Performance for Fantasy Life.

In the Documentary Feature Competition Xander Robin’s The Python Hunt and Paige Bethmann’s Remaining Native earned the Special Jury Award.

Grace Glowicki, the director, writer, and star of Dead Lover, won the Neon Auteur Award...

Cartuna and Dweck Productions are joining forces for a new distribution venture labeled Cartuna x Dweck, and they’ve together acquired North American rights to Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover following its Texas premiere at SXSW. While no date has been set, the press release details this morning, the film’s release will definitely include a theatrical rollout.

In Dead Lover, Glowicki stars as a lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses. When she finally meets her dream man (Ben Petrie), their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.

The screenplay was co-written with Petrie and also stars Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow, and is produced by Glowicki, Petrie, and Yona Strauss. Matthew Miller, Olivia Nieuwland, Lexi Tannenholtz, and Rhianon Jones and Tristan Scott Behrends of Neon Heart Productions...

Devil May Cry - Trailer Debut: The Gates of Hell Open April 3rd: "In this animated adaptation of the popular Capcom game and from the vision of Adi Shankar, sinister forces are at play to open the portal between the human and demon realms. In the middle of it all is Dante, an orphaned demon-hunter-for-hire, unaware that the fate of both worlds hangs around his neck."

Showrunner: Adi Shankar Animation Studio: Studio Mir Cast: Johnny Yong Bosch (Dante), Scout Taylor-Compton (Mary), Hoon Lee (White Rabbit), Kevin Conroy (VP Baines), Chris Coppola (Enzo)

Learn more at: www.netflix.com/devilmaycry

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Shudder Announces Acquisition of Home Invasion Horror Push: "Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thrillers and the supernatural, today announced the acquisition of Push, from the filmmakers of acclaimed indie thriller The Boy Behind The Door and Djinn, David Charbonier and Justin Powell. The highly anticipated film,...

A newly minted distribution outfit, Cartuna x Dweck, has announced that they have acquired the North American rights for Grace Glowicki’s horror comedy, Dead Lover. The film had its Texas premiere at SXSW on Sunday. A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap experiments. Our own Mel caught Dead Lover when it premiered at Sundance earlier this year. In and amongst his glowing review this particular note about how the film was presented sticks out to me. Shot on a theatrical stage with limited props, partial sets, and a cast doing double, triple, or...

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

Dead Lover has become the inaugural feature acquisition from a new distribution venture between Cartuna and Dweck Productions, marking one of the first deals from the 2025 SXSW Film Festival.

The film from writer-director Grace Glowicki was purchased by Cartuna x Dweck out of SXSW, where the movie made its Texas debut on March 9 after its world premiere at Sundance’s Midnight section earlier this year. Glowicki stars alongside Ben Petrie, Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow in the Frankenstein-themed project that blends elements of horror, comedy and romance.

Dead Lover stars Glowicki as a gravedigger whose whirlwind affair with her perfect match (Petrie) ends tragically when he drowns at sea. This leads her to attempt to resurrect him through cutting-edge scientific experiments.

Cartuna x Dweck is planning a theatrical release, although details about a release date have not yet been shared. Glowicki (Tito) helmed the feature from a script she co-wrote with Petrie.

New York indies Cartuna and Dweck Productions have acquired North American rights for Grace Glowicki’s thriller Dead Lover as the first acquisition of their newly announced joint distribution venture Cartuna x Dweck.

The partners acquired the film out of SXSW where the Canadian thriller made its Texas debut after world premiering at Sundance in the Midnight Section.

In between times, the film has also played the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Göteborg Film Festival, with forthcoming stops at the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans and the Los Angeles Festival of Movies.

Glowicki also stars in Dead Lover as a lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses. When she finally meets her dream man (Ben Petrie), their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.

Dead Lover...

“It’s alive!” — as the mad scientists would say. Grace Glowicki’s grotesque, 16mm-shot romance “Dead Lover” has been acquired for North American distribution by Cartuna and Dweck Productions, operating under a new venture Cartuna x Dweck. The deal comes after the film’s selection at SXSW, following a premiere at Sundance in January.

“We firmly believe that we are at the early stages of a historic creative movement,” says James Belfer, founder and CEO of Cartuna. “Inventive, boundary-pushing storytellers need more distribution support now than ever. This collective of producers has opted to take matters into our own hands and it’s our sincere hope that it will inspire others to do the same.”

“What Grace and her collaborators have dug up from their creative depths is like nothing I’ve ever seen before and we are so honored to be a part of this infinitely imaginative team,” said Hannah Dweck,...

Cartuna x Dweck, the new distribution venture formed by Cartuna and Dweck Productions, has acquired North American rights to Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover following screenings at SXSW.

This is the first all-rights buy from the new company, which plans a theatrical release and aims to champion bold visions and emerging voices. The deal comes less than two weeks after Oscar-winningAnora director Sean Baker issued a clarion call urging support of independent filmmaking and the theatre-going experience.

Cartuna launched a distribution arm last year and found success with the Sitges and Morbido slapstick fantasy comedy Hundreds Of Beavers, which grossed...

In the first sale of the SXSW Film Festival, Grace Glowicki’s Midnight movie “Dead Lover” has found theatrical distribution from a new boutique distribution venture, Cartuna x Dweck, which is a partnership between physical media company Cartuna and Dweck Productions, the company behind films such as “Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point” and “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.”

Cartuna x Dweck acquired North American rights to “Dead Lover” following its Texas premiere at SXSW, and this will be the first release from the new venture, as the two companies have quietly been building an initial slate of films to be announced later this year. No release date for “Dead Lover” was announced.

“Dead Lover” is Glowicki’s sophomore feature, which she wrote, directed, and starred in, and it made its premiere in the Midnight section of this year’s Sundance film Festival. The film is a campy,...

A lonely woman, solely referred to as Gravedigger, has never known romance due to the putrid scent she absorbs from her occupational namesake in the latest feature from director, star and co-writer Grace Glowicki following 2019’s Tito. One fateful night, Gravedigger’s lucky stars align when a handsome nobleman becomes infatuated by this “fetid creature,” whose smell has the unexpected effect of turning him on. The film, however, is entitled Dead Lover, clearly alluding to the tragic conclusion of Gravedigger’s whirlwind romance. Desperate to rekindle their passion, she takes her lover’s only remains—a formidable ring […]

The post “Slime Everywhere”: Grace Glowicki and U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy on Dead Lover first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A lonely woman, solely referred to as Gravedigger, has never known romance due to the putrid scent she absorbs from her occupational namesake in the latest feature from director, star and co-writer Grace Glowicki following 2019’s Tito. One fateful night, Gravedigger’s lucky stars align when a handsome nobleman becomes infatuated by this “fetid creature,” whose smell has the unexpected effect of turning him on. The film, however, is entitled Dead Lover, clearly alluding to the tragic conclusion of Gravedigger’s whirlwind romance. Desperate to rekindle their passion, she takes her lover’s only remains—a formidable ring […]

The post “Slime Everywhere”: Grace Glowicki and U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy on Dead Lover first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar in ‘Drop,’ directed by Christopher Landon. (Photo Courtesy of Overlook Film Festival)

The 2025 Overlook Film Festival announced its first wave of films, with director Christopher Landon’s Drop starring Brandon Sklenar (1923) and Meghann Fahy (The Perfect Couple) set as the Opening Night film. This year’s popular horror film festival will take place April 3-6 in New Orleans and will include 47 films, live performances, interactive events, and special guests.

Attendees will also be treated to screenings of classic horror films including director Ernest Dickerson’s Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight and the 40th anniversary 4K restoration of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator.

“No matter how many years this festival runs, every time we get to re-open the gates of our spectral summer camp feels like a miracle,” stated Landon Zakheim, co-founder and executive director of the Overlook FIlm Festival. “For all wayward souls and monster...

For a town that’s all about the movies, Los Angeles strangely isn’t always the destination for a premier film festival. Enter the Los Angeles Festival of Movies (Lafm), heading into its second year, and adding more films to its lineup. IndieWire exclusively announces the latest additions. The festival runs April 3 through 6 across venues on the east side of L.A.

Mubi and Mezzanine co-present the festival, which has just added A24’s fest-favorite comedy “Friendship,” starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, to its lineup along with restorations of Robina Rose’s “Nightshift” and Jessie Maple’s “Will,” which is regarded as the first indie feature made by an African American woman. The festival, as previously announced, opens with Amalia Ulman’s satire of clueless documentarians adrift in South America, “Magic Farm,” and closes with Neo Sora’s dystopic coming-of-age Venice premiere “Happyend.” “Magic Farm” will be released later...

After the relatively barren month of February and the awards season mercifully in the rearview, March finally brings the goods. From some of our favorite festival premieres charting all the way back to a few from Berlinale and Rotterdam last year to new documentaries and thrillers from accomplished directors, check out the batch of eclectic recommendations below.

15. The Empire (Bruno Dumont; March 7)

A year on from its Berlinale debut, where it picked up the Silver Bear Jury Prize, Bruno Dumont’s sci-fi feature The Empire is finally headed stateside. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Playing his signature brand of rural French absurdity in stark counterpoint to the grandiose strains of a space opera, Bruno Dumont returns with The Empire: his Barbarella bourguignon, his dijionnaise Dune. The Empire is the story of two warring factions: one whose mothership resembles the palace of Versailles; the other’s as if someone glued together two Notre Dames,...

Amalia Ulman’s Magic Farm will plant roots as the opening night screening of the second edition of the Los Angeles Festival of Movies. Presented by Mubi and Mezzanine, Lafm is set to take place from April 3-6, and it will feature a program of more than 20 feature films, a curated shorts roster, an inaugural animation program and featured artists talks.

Magic Farm, a Mubi film that had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month, will open the fest at Vidiots’ Eagle Theatre on April 3. Written and directed by Ulman, the pic stars Chloë Sevigny, Simon Rex and Alex Wolff in the story of a film crew working for an edgy media company that travels to Argentina to profile a local musician. In her The Hollywood Reporter review, critic Sheri Linden wrote that “Magic Farm features a stupendous cast fully in sync with Ulman’s deadpan absurdity.

The independent-focused Los Angeles Festival of Movies is preparing for its second edition, unveiling its coming line-up for April 3 to 6. The fest, co-presented by Mubi and Mezzanine, will kick-off with an opening night screening of Amalia Ulman’s south-of-the-border satire “Magic Farm,” starring Chloë Sevigny, Simon Rex and Alex Wolff as an inept documentary crew that ends up in the wrong country after embarking to profile an Argentinian musician. The feature premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January; this Lafm selection will mark its West Coast premiere.

The fest also features a screening of “Friendship,” the A24 comedy starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. Neo Sora’s Gen-z apocalypse ensemble drama “Happyend” will play as the closing night selection.

Other feature inclusions are the world premiere of Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley’s “Room Temperature,” about an annual family-operated haunted house that dramatically ups the stakes; the U.S.

Romance for indie filmmakers Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer blossomed in the most unexpected of places — as they shot their 2020 debut feature Violation, a relentlessly violent and gory revenge drama set in cottage-country Canada.

“After making our first film, which really dealt with trauma and was very dark, very painful to make and really delved into the dark recesses of our minds, we wanted to make something that was about love,” Sims-Fewer tells The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Honey Bunch, their sophomore feature, having its world premiere in Berlin on Feb. 18.

In their first feature, which bowed at the Toronto Film Festival, Sims-Fewer played a young woman in an unhappy marriage who, with her sister and their husbands, stays at a secluded cottage where unspoken traumas and upsetting sexual violence are gradually revealed.

But on Honey Bunch, the Canadian filmmakers deliberately toned down the dark, bloody material of their first feature.

Feminist body horror is taking over indie cinema.

The female filmmakers behind this new wave of flesh and flash are finding critical and commercial success by combining the viscerally grotesque with progressive themes exploring bodily autonomy, beauty standards, and social expectations for women.

Coralie Fargeat’s indie blockbuster The Substance — which has earned $77 million worldwide and picked up 5 Oscar nominations — is the current queen of female body horror, but gross-out feminist films are everywhere. Sundance’s Midnight screenings this year included Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister — a twisted take on the Cinderella story involving bone-crunching cosmetic surgery and bodily mutilation — and Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover, a horror comedy about a gravedigger (Glowicki) who goes to macabre lengths in an attempt to re-animate her deceased mate.

Berlin’s lineup features Johanna Moder’s Mother’s Baby, a German-language psychological horror movie about a woman unsure if the baby she’s...

When a film starts with a quote from Mary Shelley, it’s tempting to predict exactly where the story might be going. Sure enough, “Dead Lover” features the resurrection of a dead creature, and yet, writer-director Grace Glowicki keeps surprising the audience and gives much more than they expected. The characters she creates and the situations she puts them in are bizarrely funny. The visual ingenuity in costumes, art direction and makeup proves “Dead Lover” a singular and strange vision. Premiering in Sundance’s Midnight section before going on to play Rotterdam and other festivals, the unique film should garner a small but fervent audience.

Glowicki’s peculiar tale starts with the introduction of its main character, whom the filmmaker plays herself: a stinky gravedigger looking for love. She’s been around corpses for such a long time that she reeks of their smell and thus cannot find anyone who wants to be her mate.

Both singular in vision and singular in execution, filmmaker Grace Glowicki’s fantastic horror-comedy, Dead Lover, must be seen to be disbelieved. It must be seen to be believed too. Hyper-stylized, archly written in a hilarious camp tone (when it’s not being achingly sincere), and floridly performed, Dead Lover practically begs for unconditional entry in the cult film canon. If, in time, it reaches such exalted status, it’ll be richly deserved for Glowicki and her equally demented co-conspirators in delivering one of the oddest, strangest, weirdest films in recent memory. Opening with a quote from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, thus tipping the proverbial sailor's cap to one of the key influences for Glowicki's film, Dead Lover centers on the nameless Gravedigger (Glowicki), a desperately lonely...

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

Most monster movies have always served as mirrors for society’s deepest fears and flaws, but Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover flips that metaphor on its head, turning the genre into a biting critique of the societal systems that perpetuate those very monsters. In this wildly inventive tale, co-written by Glowicki and Ben Petrie, who also star in multiple roles, the “monsters” aren’t stitched together in the laboratory — they’re stitched into the fabric of cultural norms and expectations, looming in the shadows of every corner of The Gravedigger’s world.

Set in an unspecified pre-20th century era, yet unmistakably relevant to today, the film’s aesthetic draws from early silent cinema techniques — sped-up frame rates, color-tinted sequences, and exaggerated physicality — while embracing a modern, campy sensibility. This macabre, genre-blending story follows the lonely Gravedigger who embarks on a morbid quest to defy the laws of life and...

For her sophomore feature “Dead Lover,” which premiered in the Midnight section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, co-writer/director and star Grace Glowicki embraced not only her creepy side, but her smelly side too.

Speaking to IndieWire’s Christian Blauvelt at the IndieWire Studio in Park City, presented by Dropbox, Glowicki said of her character, “She’s a lonely gravedigger who smells so bad of corpses, no one will come near her. And she’s got a lot of emotions, so she’s very funny and angry and vulnerable and tender and all these sort of different things. So she’s kind of this anomaly of feelings and stink.”

To hone this particular strangeness, Glowicki worked with her cast to find the characters best suited for each individual performer, all of whom outside of the writer/director/star play multiple parts. This includes Glowicki’s co-writer, Ben Petrie.

“It was a really unique casting process,...

Because I will be covering the 2025 Sundance Film Festival entirely from snowy, frozen Chicago instead of snowy, frozen Park City, my screening options are limited. Only a select few films opted in to the festival’s online offerings this year, which means The A.V. Club won’t be getting a...

With her sophomore feature “Dead Lover,” director and co-writer Grace Glowicki deploys a minimalist approach to a familiar, high-concept premise. The film follows a lonely gravedigger (also Glowicki) who uses experimental science to bring her foppish lover back to life after he’s killed at sea. On paper, “Dead Lover” partly evokes Universal’s beloved 1931 “Frankenstein” adaptation, but because Glowicki shot the film entirely on a Toronto soundstage, it more closely resembles an experimental theater production than a bog-standard low-budget horror film.

The in-studio backdrop all but demands bountiful creativity from Glowicki’s small cast and crew, which “Dead Lover” exhibits in spades. Cinematographer Rhayne Vermette frequently spotlights actors so they’re bathed in darkness, which renders the film’s varied environments, from a graveyard to the open waters, suggestive playgrounds, with only set pieces to fill in a handful of blanks. This staginess not only lends a lively quality to the production,...

Filmmaker Grace Glowicki, who starred in last year’s Booger, not only writes, directs, and produces the horror comedy Dead Lover, but she also stars as the central smelly gravedigger desperate for love.

While the film itself cites Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a key source of influence, it is a story about a quirky woman willing to go to lethal, mad scientist wizardry to resurrect a lover after all, it quickly derails from that seminal text in favor of something that feels more like a raunchy, comedic stageplay of 19th century Penny Dreadfuls.

“I’d say that the inspo is probably Monty Python, Mel Brooks, cartoons, exploitation movies, my love of theater. A mashup of those different inspos,” Glowicki tells Bloody Disgusting of Dead Lover’s melting pot of influences ahead of the film’s Sundance premiere.

That eclectic mix of influences yields a bizarre, visually inventive comedy horror odyssey,...