ON THIS PAGE:
- Finalement
- Phantosmia
FINALEMENT
by CLAUDE LELOUCH
with Kad Merad, Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi, Françoise Gillard / France / 127′
In a world more and more crazy, Lino decides to leave everything behind, but in the end, he will realise that everything that happens in life is a design that destiny has drawn for our good. He had everything: a family, a career, and success, but when he feels he is losing his balance, he tries to change things. Is he a priest, a trumpeter, or a porn film director? He’s wanted across all of France, and during his travel, he wanders around and makes unexpected encounters. ‘This journey,’ the director explained,’ will see the protagonist fall in love with a woman other than his wife and finally pursue his true passion: the trumpet. This explains why musician Ibrahim Malouf was asked to supervise the soundtrack. ‘It will be a very musical film,’ Lelouch added, ‘It will be a love story between a trumpet and a piano. The director explained the title’s meaning to Variety a few months ago. ‘It is called Finalement because it will be one of the last,’ the French director had declared.
PHANTOSMIA
by LAV DIAZ / Philippines
Production: Black Cap Pictures, TEN17P FILMS, Sine Olivia Pilipinas
with Ronnie Lazaro, Janine Gutierrez, Paul Jake Paule, Hazel Orencio –
Phantosmia is a phantom odour, perhaps caused by trauma or a deep psychological fracture, and it is also the mysterious olfactory problem suffered by the film’s protagonist, Hilarion Zabala, who is desperately seeking healing. In the new movie with which Lav Diaz, who won the 2016 Golden Lion for The Woman Who Left and was also awarded a prize at Orizzonti in 2020 with Lahi, returns to Venice out of competition, a fresco of historical-political hell is portrayed, revolving around the figure of a former military police sergeant, tormented by an olfactory hallucination that haunts him, with the memory of the many killings he was forced to carry out. A radical process recommended by the psychotherapist to cure the disorder involves Hilarion to go back and confront the darker currents of his past life in military service. Assigned to the remote Pulo Penal Colony, the man will face the terrible reality of his current situation. Diaz presented his latest film, Essential Truths of the Lake, the sequel to When the Waves Are Gone, out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival 2023. With this new work, he returns to Venice after four years.
Tiziana Leone
