Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #60. Sofia Alaoui’s Animalia

Published on January 16, 2023

Animalia

A directorial debut we’ve been heavily anticipating since we came across her masterful Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize short, French-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui (who was just named to Screen Daily’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow) promises to work with the same sense of other world mysticism in her feature debut. Production took place in October of ’21 on Animalia (it’s worked under different titles over the course of production). Set in Morocco, we thought the project would premiere last year but it’s fitting that it lands in Park City. Producers include Margaux Lorier and SRAB Films’ Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral.

Gist: Oumaïma Barid plays a young pregnant woman from a humble background who is struggling to find her place within the context of her husband’s wealthy family. When a supernatural event unexpectedly separates her from her husband and in-laws, she embarks on an empowering, lone odyssey across the disrupted country, encountering a series of other-world characters and experiences along the way.

Release Date/Prediction: It’s about to have its world premiere this Friday at Sundance – in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section.

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).