Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #173. Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead

Morten Brun

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #173. Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead

Published on January 6, 2023

Handling the Undead (Håndtering av udøde)

A directorial debut that reunites thesps Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie for a third occasion, Norwegian helmer Thea Hvistendahl got a major boost from the Neon folks swooping in and grabbing the title back in September. Described as a character-driven horror/drama dealing with fundamental emotions around grief and mortality. The cast also includes Bjørn Sundquist and Bente Børsum. Einar Film’s Kristin Emblem and Guri Neby are producing.

Gist: On an abnormally hot summer day in Oslo, a strange electric field surrounds the city as a collective migraine spreads across town. TVs, lightbulbs, and electronics go haywire, the chaos reaching a debilitating crescendo when suddenly, it’s over. The battle of accepting what we can’t control which weaves together three families through their loss.

Release Date/Prediction: We could see this land in the Critics’ Week in Cannes.

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).