IRMA VEP

Sunday, October 16 – Truffaut Theatre
Part I – 1:15 pm
(Screening ends at 4:50 pm)
Part II – 5:40 pm
(Screening ends at 9:10 pm)

TV SERIES / COMEDY, DRAMA

Presented in Association with:
HBO Max & OCS
A24
Monsieur MArcel

Directed by: Olivier Assayas
Written by: Olivier Assayas, based on his own film IRMA VEP (1996)
Produced by: HBO, Ravi Nandan & Hallie Sekoff (A24), Sylvie Barthet & Daniel Delume (Les Films Mysterieux) Olivier Assayas (Vortex Sutra), Stuart Manashil Ashley Levinson, Kevin Turen, Sam Levinson, Finn Barry, Alicia Vikander
Cinematography: Denis Lenoir, Yorick Le Saux
Film Editing: Simon Jacquet, Marion Monnier, François Gédigier
Original Score: Thurston Moore
Cast: Alicia Vikander (Mira Harberg), Vincent Macaigne (René Vidal), Nora Hamzawi (Carla), Antoine Reinartz (Jérémie), Devon Ross (Regina), Jeanne Balibar (Zoé), Vincent Lacoste (Edmond Lagrange), Alex Descas (Grégory Desormeaux), Hippolyte Girardot (Robert d’Anjou), Lars Eidinger (Gottfried)
Original Broadcast: HBO Max & OCS, May 2022

Olivier Assayas‘s eight-episode HBO mini-series, Irma Vep, is a playful remake of his own 1996 feature film, also called Irma Vep… which was about a film director intent on making a modern-day remake of Louis Feuillade’s 1915 eight-episode silent serial, Les Vampires. But the self-referential dimension doesn’t end there. Because the director character in this series often refers to his own earlier remake of the film, with the Asian leading lady he subsequently married — referring, of course, to Maggie Cheung, the 1996 “Irma Vep” and Assayas’s former wife. Making the film not only uber-meta, but also somewhat autobiographical. The series is full of clips from both the Feuillade original and the 1996 film. It’s full of discussions about art vs. “content”, the cinema vs. TV, and the future of moving pictures, in general. It’s also a thoroughly entertaining, intelligent, witty, enormously charming behind-the-scenes film industry romp, laden with the prerequisite production catastrophes, eccentric talent, big egos and creative challenges. Alicia Vikander and Vincent Macaigne — both extraordinary here and clearly having a ball — lead an impeccable all-star cast in this clever, joyous homage to making movies the kooky, old-fashioned, indie way — with passion, ingenuity and a heaping measure of heart.

The son of screenwriter Jacques Rémy, Olivier Assayas directed his first short in 1979, and was a film critic for Cahiers du Cinéma from 1980 to 1985. He co-wrote the screenplays for Rendez-Vous (1984) and Scene of the Crime (1985) with director André Téchiné. He made his feature directorial debut with Disorder, which premiered in Venice in 1986. He has written and directed 31 features, shorts, series and documentaries since then. His breakout feature, Cold Water (1994), premiered in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes and Irma Vep (the feature, 1996) won the Dutch Film Critics’ Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival. Assayas is a gifted director of actors and many of his performers have been rewarded with prizes. Jeanne Balibar won the Best Actress Award in San Sebastian for Late August, Early September (1999).
Maggie Cheung won the Best Actress Award in Cannes for Clean (2004). Édgar Ramírez won a César Award as Most Promising Actor for the miniseries Carlos (2010). And Kristen Stewart nabbed a César Award as Best Supporting Actress for Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), which also garnered the Prix Louis Delluc as Best Film. Summer Hours (2008) was named Best Film of the year by the Indiewire Critics’ Poll, and Best Foreign Film by the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Association, the New York Film Critics’ Circle and the National Society of Film Critics in the U.S. Personal Shopper (2016) won a Best Director Award in Cannes. The first three episodes of Irma Vep were screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the entire series will make its theatrical debut at The American French Film Festival.