Search results for: Yorgos Lanthimos

Lanthimos' Un Certain Regard winning Dogtooth has charted a course towards the stars (I vividly remember the viewing experience back in Cannes) and there are bandwagon filled with cinephiles who are very much looking forward to seconds. Primed for a big showing in Venice, Alps is the Greek helmers' third film and is closer in DNA to his first 2005's Kinetta.

Today's announcement for the 2011 Venice Film Festival lineup basically crosses off plenty of sure bets we had been anticipating and makes us circle a bunch of titles we thought had a chance for a 2011 showing but now become hot items for the 2012 campaign. Films such as Juan Diego Solanas' Upside Down, Rodrigo Cortés' Red Lights, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot, Brillante Mendoza's Prey look more and more like Cannes 2012 items, while acquisition titles such as Antonio Campos' Simon Killer and Nick Cassavetes' Yellow wouldn't be out of place for a Sundance showing.

My big discovery of 2009 in terms of an emerging new talent haphazardly occurred during the post-award screening of the Un Certain Regard section's winning film -- Yorgos Lanthimos gave us every reason to worry about parental guidance with his sophomore film Dogtooth and has pretty much got himself a instant following from several cinephiles outside of his native Greece.

Dogtooth sees a father, mother and their three kids live in a house at the outskirts of a city. There is a tall fence surrounding the house. The kids have never left the house. They are being educated, entertained, bored and exercised in the manner that their parents deem appropriate, without any influence from the outside world.

With his jury prize win, Dogtooth and the film's helmer Yorgos Lanthimos have officially set themselves up for a prosperous apres Cannes film festival life.