Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2022: #31. Ulrich Seidl’s Böse Spiele

Böse Spiele (Wicked Games)

With filming taking place in portions between April 2017 to May 2018, it’s been a painstakingly long post-production process for Austrian maestro Ulrich Seidl‘s Böse Spiele (Wicked Games) so it’s no wonder that we’re now celebrating a fourth appearance (watch Nicholas’ vid below) on our yearly list. This may have to do with Seidl putting more of his time and creative energy into shepherding films as a producer such as Kelly Copper & Pavol Liska’s Die Kinder der Toten (2019), Andreas Horvath’s Lillian (2019), Peter Brunner’s Luzifer (2021), and Kurdwin Ayub’s upcoming Sonne (likely to have its world premiere at a major film festival). We’ve been a fan of the filmmaker since 2001’s Dog Days and 2007’s Import/Export, and he cemented his status as an auteur to patiently await all future output after his daring Paradise trilogy. Starring Michael Thomas, Georg Friedrich and Hans Michael Rehberg, Böse Spiele was written alongside Veronika Franz and this was produced by Philippe Bober, Elisabetta Pilia and Seidl.

Gist: Two men, two brothers, their childhood home in Lower Austria. They drink to their late mother, they bury her. Then they drive back to their real lives. One back to Romania, to resume living his newly begun life, the other to Rimini, to go back to dreaming his old dream. But sooner or later both their pasts will catch up with them.

Release Date/Prediction: This should compete for the Golden Bear in Berlin.