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The brilliant young filmmaker Niclas Larsson sat down with MovieWeb's Julian Roman to discuss his new movie, Mother, Couch. He spoke about the allegorical themes of the mind-bending work and his incredible cast, including Ewan McGregor and Ellen Burstyn.

Film Movement & Memory will co-release Mother, Couch on July 5th in NY at the Angelika Film Center, July 12th in LA at the Landmark Nu-Art and additional theaters nation-wide.

The members of a dysfunctional family find themselves mysteriously trapped in an antiquated furniture store when their elderly matriarch (Ellen Burstyn) suddenly refuses to get up from one of the display couches. Reluctantly assembled, her three estranged children David (Ewan McGregor), Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans), and Linda (Lara Flynn Boyle) must figure out how to escape this bizarre predicament. With the help of the store managers, Marco & Marcus (F. Murray Abraham), and their daughter Bella...

Ewan McGregor and Ellen Burstyn are a toxic son-mother duo just in time for Mother’s Day.

The aptly titled indie film “Mother, Couch” marks first time filmmaker Niclas Larsson’s directorial debut. Larsson penned the script based on Jerker Virdborg’s novel “Mamma I Soffa” that centers on a dysfunctional family trying to convince their mother (Burstyn) to leave a department store.

A trio of estranged children — David (McGregor), Gruffudd (Rhys Ifans), and Linda (Lara Flynn Boyle) — must figure out how to escape the eerie store that is owned by identical twins Marco and Marcus (F. Murray Abraham) and daughter Bella (Taylor Russell). The film becomes a descent into madness and mayhem as the store melts into a surreal purgatory where the two families must purge their long-withheld resentments.

“Mother, Couch” is produced by Ella Bishop and Pau Suris for Suris/Bishop Films, Alex Black for Lyrical Media, and Sara Murphy for Fat City.

North American indie distributor Film Movement is set to co-release Niclas Larsson’s “Mother, Couch!” starring Ewan McGregor, Ellen Burstyn, Rhys Ifans and Taylor Russell with LA-based studio and distributor Memory in North America.

Based on the book “Mamma | Soffa” by Jerker Virdborg, the fim had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival followed by San Sebastian’s 2023 New Directors, and has since continued its run through the festival circuit, most recently winning Best Nordic Film at this year’s Goteborg Film Festival. Film Movement and Memory are planning a theatrical release later this year, while Charades is representing the international rights to the film at the European Film Market in Berlin this week.

“Mother, Couch!” is the story of a family mysteriously trapped in an antiquated furniture store after their elderly Matriarch (Burstyn) refuses to get up from one of the display couches, leaving her three estranged...

Take a bit of Kafka, throw in some Buñuelian realism, add a dose of John Cheever (circa The Swimmer) and then hand the recipe over to a first-time feature-making Swedish director with fond memories of a childhood spent in Ikea furniture stores, then put together an A-List cast, and you essentially have Mother, Couch.

A World Premiere this weekend at the Toronto Film Festival, this truly surreal, metaphysical mind trip will not be to everyone’s taste, but the cast, including a couple of Oscar winners, will make it go down easier even if some of it more closely resembles a thespian exercise at the Actor’s Studio, rather than a major motion picture. It certainly is watchable, and writer/director Niclas Larsson makes the most of his adaptation of Jerker Virdborg’s book, Mamma I Sofa which centers on a seemingly normal outing to a furniture store but turns...

Charades and UTA Independent Film Group have boarded “Mother, Couch,” the high-profile feature debut of Niclas Larsson, which has just dropped its first-look image, shared in exclusivity with Variety.

An all-star cast is led by Taylor Russell, Ewan McGregor, Ellen Burstyn, Rhys Ifans, Lara Flynn Boyle and F. Murray Abraham and now Lake Bell.

Charades will handle international sales, with UTA selling the film for the U.S. “Mother, Couch” is set to world premiere at September’s Toronto Intl. Film Festival, bowing in its Special Presentations section. It then segues for its European premiere at the San Sebastian’s New Directors competition.

Produced by Lyrical Media (“How to Blow Up a Pipeline”), Fat City, launched last year by Sara Murphy and Ryan Zacarias, and Suris/Bishop Films, New York-based and specializing in development. It is co-produced with Sweden’s high-flying regional production fund Film I Vast and Denmark’s Snowglobe,...

Creatura, the debut feature from Spanish director Elena Martín Gimeno, has won the Europa Cinemas Label prize for best European film in the 2023 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight section. The drama, about a seemingly perfect couple who can’t manage to have sex anymore, explores themes of repression and female sexual desire.

Gimeno co-wrote the screenplay for Creatura with Clara Roquet and stars in the film alongside Clàudia Dalmau, Clàudia Borràs, Oriol Pla, Alex Brendemühl, Clara Segura, Marc Cartanyà and Carla Linares.

The European Cinemas jury called Creatura a “well-written and impressive portrayal of a woman as she tries to come to terms with her sexuality and intimacy while reflecting on her childhood and teenage experiences. This is a subject that has been covered before, but each character is so multi-layered and believable that the film is easy to relate to — both the female and the male characters. There are challenging moments but there is humor,...

“Creatura,” the feature debut of Elena Martín, exploring female sexual desire and repression, has won this year’s 20th Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for best European Film at the 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Announced Thursday by Europa Cinemas, ahead of the closing ceremony this afternoon, the prize is one of two at Directors’ Fortnight, and awarded by one of the sidebar’s partners, given the section is non-competitive.

A second partner plaudit, the Sacd Prize, handed out by France’s Writers’ Guild, will be announced simultaneously to the Europa Cinemas Label.

“Creature” hit Cannes will multiple tailwinds. Like last year’s Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” it’s made by an emerging woman director associated by the so-called Catalan New Wave of helmers and producers making films twinning a strong sense of place and universal issues.

The second feature from 2021 Málaga best director Martín (“Júlia ist”) and a “Veneno” writer and “Perfect Life” director,...

Updated with Sacd prize details: Spanish director Elena Martín Gimeno’s Creatura won the Europa Cinemas prize as Best European Film, while Pierre Caton’s Le Prince scooped the Sacd for best French film at Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday.

The prizes were announced ahead of the evening closing ceremony for the non-competitive parallel Directors Fortnight section.

The Europa Cinema label and Sacd prizes are the key collateral prizes awarded to films world premiering in the section.

Under the Europa Cinema prize, the release of Creatura will receive the support of cinemas belonging to the independent exhibitor network representing 3,060 screens in 38 countries. The jury consists of four exhibitor members of the network.

Creatura revolves around a seemingly perfect couple who no longer manage to have sex, prompting one partner to probe her past and her sexual sexual awakening, from adolescence back to early childhood.

French writers guild Sacd’s prize is...

Exclusive: Start Media has optioned film and television rights to Jonathan Stroud’s award-winning young adult fantasy series, The Bartimaeus Sequence. It gives a new lease on life for a four-book fantasy series whose publishing and screen rights were bought by Miramax for a whopping $3 million back in 2002, and then proceeded to languish.

Start Media’s Michael Maher, whose credits include the Sony pic Passengers, said he spent several years untangling the rights. He arranged to pay the money against the project upon start of production, and will finance development. Even though the first deal got made nearly two decades ago, he believes there is ripe potential for a studio tent pole with fresh IP that perhaps is best classified as a darker Harry Potter.

The book was originally by then Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein in the wake of the success of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings,...