Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2016: #20. Bruno Dumont’s Ma Loute (Slack Bay)

Ma Loute

Director: Bruno Dumont
Writer: Bruno Dumont

After making his first foray into television with 2014’s wonderfully strange Li’l Quinquin (read review), Bruno Dumont returns to another dark comedy vehicle with Ma Loute (Slack Bay),  a period piece set in the summer of 1910. The disappearance of tourists lead two inspectors to explore a seaside resort in Pas de Calais, where two very different families have managed to become wrapped up in these strange circumstances. Dumont reunites with Juliette Binoche, who last starred in his 2013 Camille Claudel, 1915, and she’s joined notably by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Fabrice Luchini (who won Best Actor in Venice 2015 for L’hermine).

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Fabrice Luchini, Jean-Luc Vincent

Production Co./Producer: 3B Productions’ Jean Bréhat (Li’l Quinquin).

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Memento Films (international).

Release Date: Dumont has appeared at Cannes five times, winning a special mention for the Camera d’Or for his 1997 debut The Life of Jesus, and snagging the Grand Prix both times he competed (1999’s Humanite, 2006’s Flanders). His Outside Satan played Un Certain Regard while his disarmingly funny L’il Quinquin series got programmed in Directors’ Fortnight. A return to his strange sense of comedy, and it’s prolific trio of cast members has us assuming Dumont will return to the Croisette, perhaps again to the competition.