As we eagerly await her sophomore feature Ama Gloria (currently in post but tipped to premiere later in the year), we just learned that Marie Amachoukeli has an overlap in projects already working on her third feature – an animated film that comically reverse-engineers the hourglass. Variety reports that Marie Amachoukeli (who is at the Cartoon Movie pitch and co-production forum in Bordeaux will co-direct (with Vladimir Mavounia Kouka) Happy End sometime next year. The 2D project in the style of Max Fleischer won’t be for the kids. Variety has a three-minute promo teaser you can watch here.
Co-written with Amachoukeli and Jean-François Halin, this follows Bertha King, a suicidal career soldier who is unlucky enough to finally end things right as the grim reaper hangs up his scythe. Left yearning to die while death has gone on strike, the depressed hero must navigate a morose new existence all of sudden freed from the bonds of mortality.
We thought Amachoukeli might be returning to Cannes with her latest project (which we had in our most anticipated films for 2023) – the lieu where she premiered her non-solo directorial debut Party Girl which would end up winning the Camera d’Or. The team are aiming to showcase the hybrid film at a festival launch later this year.
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).
