PETER VON KANT
Tuesday, October 11 – Truffaut Theatre – 4:00 pm
(Screening ends at 5:45 pm)
Special Screening – The American French Film Festival Awards
+ Short Film Presentation: SCALE
FICTION / DRAMA, COMEDY
Presented in Association with:
France Televisions
Playtime
Strand Releasing
Special Screening | France | 2022 | Drama | 86 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: François Ozon
Written by: François Ozon
Based on the film by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Produced by: François Ozon (FOZ), France 2 Cinéma
Cinematography: Manu Dacosse
Film Editing: Laure Gardette
Original Score: Clément Ducol
Cast: Denis Ménochet (Peter Von Kant), Isabelle Adjani (Sidonie), Khalil Gharbia (Amir), Hanna Schygulla (Rosemarie), Stefan Crepon (Karl), Aminthe Audiard (Gabrielle)
International Sales: Playtime
U.S. Distributor: Strand Releasing
François Ozon cleverly turns the tables on his idol — the larger-than-life catalyst of ’70s New German Cinema, Rainer Werner Fassbinder — by casting him as the protagonist in his own story. “Freely adapted” from Fassbinder’s 1972 campy melodrama, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Peter von Kant takes that agonizing tale of three women trapped in a toxic love triangle and gives it a sex change. Whereas Petra was a tortured fashion designer, posing in ornate gowns and wigs, Peter is another kind of diva — a volatile, doped-up, boozer of a film director who clearly resembles Fassbinder himself. True to form, the object of Peter’s desire is an exquisite young thing named Amir Ben-Salem. The ever-sublime Hannah Schygulla (the shimmering object of Petra’s lust in the original film) even turns up as Peter’s consoling mother. But for all the film’s self-referential adulation and exuberance, it’s Denis Ménochet’s fearless, powerhouse performance that pushes it beyond the mere exercise of revealing an artist through his own creation, and breathes life into the ultimately tragic, horrifying, incredibly fragile soul of the artist himself.
One of the most provocative and prolific filmmakers to emerge from the 1990s wave of new French talent, François Ozon has distinguished himself with his psychologically dark films, his candid explorations of transgression and sexuality, and his wry humor and subversive insight. After earning a master’s degree in cinema studies, Ozon attended La Femis film school and began to churn out numerous inventive short films, like A Summer Dress (1996), which won the Best Narrative Short Award at L.A. Outfest and was nominated for a César Award, and the haunting featurette See the Sea (1997). His first feature, Sitcom, premiered in Cannes in 1998. Ozon has directed 45 films to date — 21 of them features. Among his many awards, he’s nabbed three prizes in Berlin: for Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000), his adaptation of an unproduced play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder; the star-studded musical 8 Women; and By the Grace of God (2018), his piercing examination of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He’s won five prizes in San Sebastián: for Hideaway (2009), In the House (COLCOA 2013), Young & Beautiful (COLCOA 2014), and The New Girlfriend (2014). His films have garnered 21 César nominations and he was honored with the 2004 Douglas Sirk Award in Hamburg. Fittingly, Peter von Kant was the opening film of this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
