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"Remember you are dust, and will return to dust." Films Boutique has revealed a trailer for a Giallo thriller from France titled Bitten, originally called La Morsure in French. Yet another dark, grainy, gothic vampire thriller? This is premiering at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland underway now, just in time for its world premiere. A Catholic schoolgirl is convinced tonight is her last night on Earth and decides to attend a costume party with her best friend. Set in 1967 during Mardi Gras. Françoise is a 17-year-old boarder who sneaks out with her friend Delphine to attend a party and live the night as if it was her last... The director explains that he references are "films like Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson), Carrie (Brian De Palma), or Phenomena (Dario Argento) for their striking and intense visions of adolescence, distorted by a prism of fantasy. With this film...

Films Boutique will handle international sales on Filipino master Lav Díaz’s “Essential Truths of The Lake,” one of the highest-profile titles in the just announced main International Competition at this year’s Locarno Festival.

The Berlin and Lyon-based production-sales company’s fifth collaboration with Diaz following, among others, Venice Golden Bear Winner “The Woman Who Left” and Berlin Silver Bear Winner “Lullaby To A Sorrowful Mystery,” “Essential Truths of The Lake” marks a prequel to Diaz’s ‘When The Waves Are Gone’ that premiered out of competition at Venice last year.

It reprises the character of the ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators of the Philippines. When asked what drives a man to search for the truth, Papauran says dejectedly that maybe he just wants to keep inflicting pain on himself.

Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, he...

La Morsure

Another feature debut on our list that we’re highly curious about is this item that received some coin backing from Gan Film Foundation and moved into production exactly one year ago. French filmmaker Romain de Saint-Blanquat appears to be working with a 60’s spirit and early horror works template in La Morsure — the project, filmed in the South of France (mainly Normandy), sees Léonie Dahan-Lamort and Lilith Grasmug (Bloody Oranges) topline with Cyril Metzger (Happening), Maxime Rohart and Fred Blin completing the main cast. This was produced by Easy Tiger’s Marc-Benoit Créancier (Magnetic Beats).…...

A corrupt minister and a delusional pair of dance contestants are just two of the monsters of mediocrity who haunt Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s strange film

Macron’s France gets tied to a chair in a basement and abused in this scabrous and gruesome state-of-the-nation black comedy from Jean-Christophe Meurisse. Olivier (Olivier Saladin) and Laurence (Lorella Cravotta) are a conceited retired couple in deep denial about how much debt they’re in, but hoping to win big money by competing in a dance contest. They figure they are entitled to extra points for being older, and the ferocious opening scene shows the judges debating precisely this kind of liberal identity-politics issue.

The couple’s grown-up son, Alexandre (Alexandre Steiger), is a lawyer who, along with a bleary spin doctor (Denis Podalydès), is advising a creepy and reactionary government minister (Christophe Paou) who is keen to cut welfare while engaging in personal...