Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2015: #29. Alex van Warmerdam’s Schneider Vs. Bax

Schneider Vs. Bax

Director: Alex van Warmerdam // Writer: Alex van Warmerdam

Steadily working Dutch auteur Alex van Warmerdam has been systematically making bizarre, offbeat features since 1986’s Voyeur (aka Abel), with titles like 1992’s The Northerners or 2003’s Grimm reaching a wider international audience. But at Cannes 2013, Warmerdam’s eighth feature, Borgman, was a breakout success. Though it went home empty handed, it certainly increased Warmerdam’s profile with a delightfully strange film. His latest, Schneider Vs. Bax, sees the director with his usual set cast of returning characters, including Pierre Bokma and his wife, Annet Malherbe, who starred in nearly all his features. A hitman is assigned the simple task of killing a solitary writer before the night is through. Of course, things don’t go as planned.

Cast: Alex van Warmerdam, Annet Malherbe, Pierre Bokma

Production Co.: Graniet Film BV, CZAR, Verenigde Arbeiders Radio Amateurs (VARA)

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available.

Release Date: Warmerdam almost always makes an appearance in the Toronto line-up, and 1996’s The Dress saw a Venice premiere. It’s uncertain if Cannes will be inviting him back to the Main Comp, but it would be ready in time, so we’ll see if he ends up in a sidebar there before hitting up the fall circuit.

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