Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2015: #22. Cristi Puiu’s Sierra-Nevada

Date:

Sierra-Nevada

Director: Cristi Puiu // Writer: Cristi Puiu

Not much has been heard lately from Romanian New Wave master Cristi Puiu, whose memorable sophomore effort, 2005’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu won the Un Certain Regard award and became one of the signature titles of that film movement. His less celebrated but equally assured follow-up was 2010’s incredibly bleak Aurora. Since then, he quietly unleashed a terrific 2013 feature Three Exercises of Interpretation, which was one of the best films we saw that year, but it sadly is still without distribution. At the tail end of 2013, Puiu announced two projects in development, the first being Sierra-Nevada. A shoot had been scheduled for late that year for a 2014 premiere, but it was only recently announced that the project had recently received the funding it had been hoping for from Eurimages. The film concerns “a commemoration that never gets to take place,” as Puiu describes it, and its characters escape into fiction when overwhelmed by a grief they cannot understand. Inspired by Aurel Rau’s poem The Agathirsoi.

Cast: Not available.

Producer: Anca Puiu (Viktoria)

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.

Release Date: Depending on whether filming took place already (though a 20 day shoot was originally estimated), we believe Puiu could have this ready in time for Cannes. If not, certainly we’ll see this around in the fall.

.

Nicholas Bell
Nicholas Bell
Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), FIPRESCI, the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2023: The Beast (Bonello) Poor Things (Lanthimos), Master Gardener (Schrader). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.

1 COMMENT

Share post:

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

Popular

More like this
Related

TheyDream | Review

Frames That Mend: Caballero Unevenly Probes Puerto Rican Family...

The Devils (1971) | Review

Sympathy for The Devils: The Suppression of Ken Russell’s...

Ken Russell’s The Devils – 2010 Fantasia International Film Festival

Iconic director Ken Russell was in town to receive a lifetime achievement award from Fantasia for his 50-plus years in the business, a career that has spawned many genre classics including Altered States, Gothic, and The Lair of the White Worm. But it was the little-seen and hard to find The Devils from 1971 that proved to be Russell's most controversial work, and Fantasia managed to snag a copy to be screened on Russell's big night. In the video, Russell discusses the true story behind the film and receives his award with the grace befitting one of the great filmmakers of all time.

Club Kid | Review

Sex, Drugs & Unexpected Parenting: Firstman’s Debut Creates an...