She Is Conann (2024)
Director: Bertrand Mandico Run Time: 105 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2023
Starring: Christa Théret, Claire Duburcq, Elina Löwensohn, Julia Riedler, Sandra Parfait
Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg
Language: French, English, German with English subtitles
About the film:
World Premiere, 2023 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight
In a barbaric fantasy sci-fi trip through time, sword-and-sorcery mythology is bent, fractured, gender-swapped by master visionary Bertrand Mandico in his third feature epic.
Reiner, the fierce guardian of the underworld, leads Conann, the Queen of the Barbarians, on a journey through her past. She will lose herself, die, be reborn, become another, and still others, from the dawn of time to the distant future, each iteration more barbaric than the last. May the grand spectacle of madness and violence begin!
“Decadent, hermetic, and gleefully hostile to realism… She Is Conann is the cinematic equivalent of a French Symbolist poem.”
—William Repass, Slant Magazine
About the filmmaker:
Bertrand Mandico is a French filmmaker who graduated from the film directing program at the Gobelins animation school in Paris. Over the years, Bertrand has cultivated a unique aesthetic and a flare for dark humor that juxtaposes macabre elements and burlesque. He has enriched his cinematic studies with various still format publications, photography, collage and drawings. While continuing his ongoing project of directing 21 shorts in 21 years with actress Elina Löwensohn, he directed his debut feature, The Wild Boys, which premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2017. His sophomore feature, After Blue (Dirty Paradise), won the FIPRESCI Prize at Locarno International Film Festival in 2021. With She is Conann (2024), Mandico uses multiple actresses to follow a gender reversed Conan the Barbarian through her life, creating a one of a kind cinematic experience.
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