Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2015: #44. Jaco Van Dormael’s Le tout Nouveau Testament

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Le tout Nouveau Testament

Director: Jaco Van Dormael // Writers: Thomas Gunzig, Jaco Van Dormael

Get ready for some inventive strangeness from Belgian auteur Jaco Van Dormael, who won the Camera d’Or back in 1991 for his inspired debut, Toto, the Hero. But he’s most famous for his lavish 2009 English language production, Mr. Nobody, a sort of philosophical sci-fi extravaganza that starred Jared Leto. The film cost upwards of 33 million euros and was greeted with an incredibly cool reception, not even available for US audiences until 2013 when Leto’s Oscar campaign for The Dallas Buyers Club was in full force. Now, Van Dormael has scaled it back a bit (he did have a demure 2011 title, Kiss & Cry, which has yet to see any kind of release here) with his latest, Le tout Nouveau Testament (The Brand New Testament), which professes to tell the story of God and his exacerbated relationship with his daughter—apparently they both live in Belgium. Van Dormael has cast the delightfully strange Belgian talents Benoit Poelvoorde (see film still above) and Yolande Moreau, along with French icon Catherine Deneuve (who shared screen time with Poelvoorde in Jacquot’s 3 Hearts earlier this year).

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Poelvoorde, Yolande Moreau

Production Co.: Caviar Films, Climax Films, Juliette Films

U.S. Distributor: Rights available

Release Date: Filming took place earlier in 2014, so we’re hoping Van Dormael is ready for Cannes, where he hasn’t been since his 1996 sophomore film, The Eighth Day.

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Nicholas Bell
Nicholas Bell
Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), FIPRESCI, the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2023: The Beast (Bonello) Poor Things (Lanthimos), Master Gardener (Schrader). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.

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