Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #2. Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster

The Lobster

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writer(s): Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou (both featured in pic above)
Producer(s): Lanthimos, Element Pictures’ Lee Magiday & Ed Guiney, Scarlet Films’ Ceci Dempsey
Exec Producers: Element Pictures’ Andrew Lowe
Co-Producers: Haut et Court, Faliro House and Lemming Films
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Jason Clarke, Ben Whishaw, Léa Seydoux, Olivia Colman, Ariane Labed and Angeliki Papoulia

One of the most exciting filmmakers to emerge on the global film scene over the past five years has been Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director, whose last two films, Dogtooth (2009) and ALPS (2011) were incredibly strange, original, and undoubtedly haunting in their depictions of worlds severely off kilter (his influence can already be seen in other emerging filmmakers from his native country with 2013’s Miss Violence from Alexandros Avranas bearing a striking resemblance to the bizarre drama of Lanthimos. Several months back, funding was announced from several sourced for his English language debut, and cast members Ben Whishaw, Olivia Coleman, Jason Clarke, and everyone’s warmest colour, Lea Seydoux. An exquisite and exciting union of talents, this is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing projects of the next year (it was awarded the ARTE International Award as Best CineMart Project for 2013 at the the Rotterdam International Film Festival). His muses in Aggeliki Papoulia and Ariane Labed are of course part of the cast list as well.

Gist: Set in a dystopian future, the film will follow a group of single men and women who are brought to a hotel and ordered to find a life partner within 45 days. Those who fail to are transformed into animals and released into the woods.

Release Date: Production will begin in the month of March, so a return to the Venice Film Festival/TIFF is in the cards.

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