#01. Post Tenebras Lux
Director/Writer: Carlos Reygadas
Producers: Le Pacte’s Jean Labadie and Mantarraya Producciones’ Jaime Romandia
Distributor: Rights Available
The Gist: Childhood and adolescence memories, dreams of life, emotions and thoughts of the present existence. It’s a feature film with a loose plot link in its discourse but really clear in its poetics. It is not united by the plot but by the harmony in the expression of the feelings. It works like this: at a superficial level, by the stylistic coherence; at a deep level, making sense through the identity of the personal vision…(more)
Cast: Further use of non-professional actors.
List Worthy Reasons…: Incrementally perfecting his stylistic and narrative approach, in Japon and Battle in Heaven, Carlos Reygadas examined our will to live, defined how compassion and sympathy can sustain itself in dire trying moments, and he painfully, unflinchingly reminded us that there is nothing romantic about cruelty found in nature (violence brought about by humans). In his third feature, he examined such themes under the weight of the world or the gods above — in my books the cinematic miracle known as Silent Light defies classification as it reaches far beyond the film patronage experience. Working with DP Alexis Zabé, with Post Tenebras Lux (literal translation, Light After Darkness), we should expect strong imagery, a deeply personal journey and a composition that the filmmaker described as “an expressionist painting where you try to express what you’re feeling through the painting rather than depict what something looks like.” — Special thanks to the filmmaker for the image frame/still.
Release Date/Status?: Three feature films and three showings in Cannes means by all logic this will receive a Main Competition showing at the festival.