Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #89. Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy

Published on January 13, 2023

Disco Boy

A project that received backing in the shape of a Cinefondation residency and an Arte Development Prize at the Arcs Film Festival’s Village of Coproductions, Italian filmmaker Giacomo Abbruzzese worked in the short form before graduating to this feature debut. Filmed in France and in Poland, Disco Boy was filmed in September of 2021. This depicts the painful journey of moving to an uncertain destination. Franz Rogowski, Morr N’Diaye, Laetitia Ky, Leon Lucev, Matteo Olivetti, Robert Wieckiewcz and Mutamba Kalonji star. Films Grand Huit’s Lionel Massol and Pauline Seigland produced the project. Hélène Louvart is the cinematographer here.

Gist: This follows two destinies at odds with each other. After a painful journey through Europe, Alex, the Belarusian, joins the Foreign Legion in France and clings to a confused hope of a European identity. Jomo, the Nigerian, fights for the survival and durability of his people in the Niger Delta and is ready to die to defend his ideas. These two young people who are sacrificed and smashed together will, against all odds, meet and their destinies will merge to continue across borders, bodies, life and death…

Release Date/Prediction: After a year in post, we had circled this for a premiere at the Berlinale.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).