FINAL CUT
(COUPEZ !)
Sunday, October 16 – Renoir Theatre – 4:45 pm
(Screening ends at 6:45 pm)
+ Short Film Presentation: THE CLIMATISOR
Followed by a conversation with Academy Award winner writer/director Michel Hazanavicius
FICTION / COMEDY
Presented in Association with:
ARP
France Televisions
Unifrance
Wild Bunch International
West Coast Premiere | France | 2022 | Comedy, Parody | 111 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius
Written by: Michel Hazanavicius
Based on the Work of: Shin’ichirô Ueda
Produced by: Brahim Chioua (Getaway Films), Michel Hazanavicius (La Classe Américaine), Noémie Devide & Vincent Maraval (Wild Bunch), France 2 Cinéma
Cinematography: Jonathan Ricquebourg
Film Editing: Mickael Dumontier, Michel Hazanavicius
Original Score: Alexandre Desplat
Cast: Romain Duris (Rémi/Higurashi), Bérénice Bejo (Nadia/Natsumi), Grégory Gadebois (Philippe/Hosoda), Finnegan Oldfield (Raphaël/Ken), Matilda Lutz (Ava/Chinatsu), Sébastien Chassagne (Armel/Yamakoshi), Raphaël Quenard (Jonathan/Akira), Lyes Salem (Mounir)
International Sales: Wild Bunch International
The opening film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival was the wacky gore-fest Final Cut, a remake of Shin’ichirô Ueda’s no-budget Japanese mega-hit zombie movie, One Cut of the Dead, about a filmmaker making a no-budget zombie movie in which the cast and crew, one by one, actually turn into zombies. It doesn’t get any more meta than this, and Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius plays that silliness for all it’s worth. While what’s on screen unfolds in typical cheesy B-movie fashion, it’s the off-screen mishaps and debacles that genuinely push the film into the realm of high farce. More comedy than horror film or zombie flick, Final Cut revels in its goofy lowbrow genre-movie fun!
Academy Awards winner Michel Hazanavicius began his career as a director of commercials and television projects. In 1999, he wrote and directed his first feature, Mes amis. His next film, the James Bond parody, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (COLCOA 2008), was such a box office hit, it spawned the equally successful sequel, OSS 117: Lost in Rio (COLCOA 2009). Hazanavicius burst onto the international scene with the release of his almost silent film, The Artist (2011), starring his OSS 117 star Jean Dujardin. A smash critical and popular hit, that film garnered 162 awards worldwide, including a Palme d’Or, Best Actor and Palm Dog Awards in Cannes; five Oscars and five BAFTA Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor prizes each time; six César Awards; three Golden Globes; a Best Director Award from the DGA; and was named Best Film of 2011 by the New York Film Critics Circle and the London Critics Circle. That was followed by The Search (COLCOA 2015), Godard Mon Amour (2017), and The Lost Prince (2020). After opening at Cannes, Final Cut enjoyed a lively commercial success in France this summer.
