Alchemy Sedates Hadzihalilovic’s “Evolution” in Pre-Fest TIFF Pick-Up

We’re already gearing up for some TIFF presales with this one coming from the delicious Vanguard programme offerings. Deadline reports that Lucile Hadzihalilovic‘s long awaited sophomore film has been picked well in advance of it’s September world premiere date. Not known for picking up films with subtitles, Alchemy landed Evolution –  a pic that has been on our most anticipated radar for a while now. More than a decade since her boarding school misadventures of Innocence announced a new French talent was among us (she did co-write Enter the Void), we’re thinking that the distrib co. might have gotten an early look due to their pick-up of Noe’s 2015 Cannes selected Love.

Gist: Written by Hadzihalilovic, Alanté Kavaïté and Geoff Cox, this is about 10-year-old Nicolas (Max Brebant) who lives with his mother on a remote island, in a village inhabited solely by women and young boys. In a hospital overlooking the ocean, all the boys are subjected to a mysterious medical treatment. Only Nicolas questions what is happening around him. He senses that his mother is lying to him, and is determined to find out what she does with the other women at night, on the beach… What he discovers is the beginning of a nightmare into which he is helplessly drawn. But in Stella (Roxane Duran), a young nurse at the hospital, Nicolas finds an unexpected ally…

Worth Noting: After the world preem, the film will show in San Sebastian FF, where Hadzihalilovic won the Best New Director Award back in ’04.

Do We Care?: After her unsettling portrait of incredulous young girls, we’re guessing Hadzihalilovic might do one better with young boys and the horror fantasy genre than what we’ve come to expect from Spanish helmer counterparts.