Neon has released the teaser trailer and poster of David Cronenberg’s latest outing, Crimes of the Future which is sci-fi body horror film, starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, and Léa Seydoux. It is scheduled to make its world premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival as an Official Selection for its competition category.
Cronenberg’s world gets a deep dive into the not-so-distant future in which humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. This evolution moves humans beyond their natural state and into a metamorphosis, which alters their biological makeup.
Director David Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen have teamed up for three films: 2005’s A History of Violence, 2007’s Eastern Promises, and 2011’s A Dangerous Method. Production took place in Athens, Greece.
Crimes of the Future is a co-production by NEON, Serendipity Point Films, and Argonauts Productions. Producers are Steve Solomos and Argonauts’ Panos Papahadzis with Joe Iacono, Thorsten Schumacher, Peter Touche, Christelle Conan, Aida Tannyan, Victor Loewy and Victor Hadida set as executive producers. Bonnie Do and Laura Lanktree have also been set as associate producers.
SYNOPSIS
In a not-so-distant future, humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. Their biological makeup changed, many humans have adapted to life with “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome” thanks partly to specialized equipment that aids in everything from eating to sleeping.
Beloved performance artist Saul Tenser sleeps in a womb-like bed suspended in mid-air. The OrchidBed, as it’s called, comes complete with software to anticipate, and adjust his every bodily need. The machine even detects the growth of new organs, which Saul’s creative partner Caprice can observe and tattoo in his personal operating theatre. Together, Saul and Caprice have turned the discovery and removal of these new body organs into performance art, via sold-out voyeuristic surgical shows using a sarcophagus-like machine where the surgeries take place.
These human evolutionary changes do not receive universal positivity. Before long, a new secret government entity is established – the National Organ Registry, led by bureaucrats Wippet and Timlin – to discreetly track new organ growths, with particular enthusiasm for Saul’s artistic anomalies. With increased scrutiny on the syndrome and therefore his art, Saul is forced to consider what would be his most shocking performance of all.
As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed… Their mission – to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.
Director’s Statement
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is a meditation on human evolution.
Specifically – the ways in which we have had to take control of the process because we have created such powerful environments that did not exist previously. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is an evolution of things I have done before. Fans will see key references to other scenes and moments from my other films. That’s a continuity of my understanding of technology as connected to the human body.
Technology is always an extension of the human body, even when it seems to be very mechanical and non- human. A fist becomes enhanced by a club or a stone that you throw – but ultimately, that club or stone is an extension of some potency that the human body already has.
At this critical junction in human history, one wonders – can the human body evolve to solve problems we have created? Can the human body evolve a process to digest plastics and artificial materials not only as part of a solution to the climate crisis, but also, to grow, thrive, and survive?
Interview with David Cronenberg
DAVID CRONENBERG – Writer and Director
What is Crimes of The Future about?
In 1966 I saw a Danish movie called Sult which means hunger in Danish, and it was based on a famous Danish novel by Knut Hamsun, which was directed by Henning Carlsen. In that movie the Per Oscarsson plays a poet, a sort of a broken, unrecognized poet who wanders the streets and has adventures and tries to create himself as a legitimate poet, literary force. At one point he’s on a bridge and he’s scribbling something in a pad that he carries with him, and you have a close up of it and it says “crimes of the future,” and that really struck me. I thought, I want to read that poem. Of course he never writes it, but later I thought, well now that I’m starting to become a filmmaker I think I would like to see the movie Crimes of the Future, and so in 1970 I made an underground film, very low budget to say the least, called Crimes of the Future. The title really provoked me, and I think that 1970 low-budget, sort of underground film didn’t ever really satisfy all of the things that I thought could come out of that poem that never got written and so here we are many years later, like half a century maybe and I’ve made another movie called Crimes of the Future, and the only thing the two films have in common is that they are technically about “crimes of the future.”
The idea then being that as technology changes, as society changes, things that didn’t exist have come into existence and are suppressed for various reasons as being dangerous to society or a threat to whatever social structure exists, hence Crimes of the Future. I start to think about the human body because I have always thought that was what we are. The human condition is the human body, so Crimes of the Future could involve crimes that come out of what is happening to the human body… as it does evolve, it is changing, it’s changing in very subtle ways and then some not so subtle ways. Partly it’s because of what we’re doing to the planet, partly it’s what we’re doing to ourselves with our own technology and so that intrigued me. I thought I’d like to now make a movie that has to do with how society would react to changes in the human body that it thought were dangerous, were considered dangerous and should be suppressed. I thought that was an interesting topic for me to explore and that therefore is what the movie, Crimes of the Future is about.
What’s the short answer?
I’d say Crimes of the Future is about the crimes committed by the human body against itself, and I know that that’s kind of mysterious and kind of confusing but that’s my answer to that question.
What compels you to look at things that scare a lot of people especially now?
I think there are a lot of cases that one can refer to of people embracing their disease, a disease they have, a disability that they have, a mutation that they have, it’s part of a human desire to make something thing good out of whatever the human condition offers, and so I think Saul Tenser is just a sort of an exaggerated, extreme version of that. He has found himself producing new organs in his body or things that would be considered tumors. In this case they seem to have an organization that a tumor does not have. A tumor is really a kind of random collection of cells that grow uncontrollably, they do disrupt all
kinds of things in the human body but to no apparent purpose, and they’re basically just destructive. In this case he’s creating new organs that seem to have a function, we just don’t know what that function is, and so it’s a strange kind of designer cancer as one of the characters calls it. His goal is to incorporate it into his life, not to deny it, not to just destroy it but to make it something. In his case, he’s making performance art out of these tumors and, with his partner, designs a series of performances which involve the exposure of these organs and, and a removal of the organs as though they are art creations that his body has undertaken on its own. It’s partly a desire to come to grips with the reality of his own body, so it’s a need in our human condition that our bodies are constantly changing and require adjustments by us, philosophically, emotionally to deal with those changes. So this is a sort of more structured exaggerated version of what Saul Tenser is undergoing.
Do you think that could happen with our organs?
Oh I think we’re doing it, I think we’re definitely changing, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it, it might not be as obvious as I have depicted it. A famous Nobel prize winner, Gerald Edelmen, said that the human brain is not at all like a computer. It is much more like a rainforest where there’s a constant striving for dominance amongst the neurons and the different elements in the brain and they’re constantly responding to the environment, that is to say the intake from your eyes, from your nose, from your, the senses and also how much you exercise it. So even just talking about the brain as the super organ of human existence, it is constantly changing and mutating and so it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine that for other parts of the body. The digestive system responds, we now understand the microbiome in the human gut and the intestines, that it’s actually a lot of living organisms there that communicate with the human brain. There’s a constant connection these things would be considered science fiction years ago, and now are just understood as part of what the complexity of the human body is. So I don’t think it’s an exaggeration really, I think it’s just a sort of extrapolation into the future that I’m undertaking with this movie.
Why is now the time to do this film?
Well I wrote this script for Crimes of the Future in around 1998, 99, so it’s over twenty years old and there were a couple of attempts to get it made and for various reasons it didn’t get financed. That happens, that’s not unusual, but it was only when the producer Robert Lantos phoned me and said, ‘You know, have you looked at your old scripts,’ and I said ‘Because of its science-fiction technology core, I’m sure it’s completely irrelevant now.’ And he said ‘No, you should re-read it, it’s more relevant than ever.’ I thought that’s a good line, and I read it and I thought he was right.
I’ve never been much for prophecy, I don’t think of art as being prophetic, but you can anticipate some things almost by accident, especially when you’re writing something that is basically science-fiction as this movie is. You stumble upon something that has a trajectory to the future, and this story did have that and it was still pretty valid. I think people are more aware now, for example, of the toxicity of the environment that we are creating on Earth and how we are in some ways destroying the earth, we’re certainly altering it, there’s no question about that. To see how the idea that technology is really the extension of the human body, and the human will…there was a time when people thought that technology could be inhuman, and for me technology was always a human thing. I think in fact it’s a reflection, it’s a mirror that reflects back to us what we are, the good parts and the bad parts, the destructive parts and the excitingly creative humane parts so there is that element in this movie that talks about the reflection of what we are in technology.
How does this fit into your body of work?
I don’t really think about my larger work, honestly, I mean each project for me is a separate thing and I know that there will be connections amongst the films whether I’ve written them myself or they’re an adaptation or whether they’re based on a play or a novel. I know that because I’m interested enough to turn it into a movie which is a huge endeavor. It takes a lot of time and will and energy, that there will be connections amongst these that have to do with my sensibility, but that’s as far as I go.
Do you have a preference to filming your own work or adapting someone else’s?
Once I have a script that I have committed to and the production and so on they’re all the same. I mean there’s no difference between my script and somebody else’s, in fact I’m just as hard on my own script as I would be on somebody else’s. In the editing room, after shooting the movie, I’m pretty brutal. They have to stop me from creating a 72 minute movie, you know I’m in the odd position often of having producers begging me to put stuff back in. I like to cut, it’s fun to see how lean you can be with it and still have the movie work.
What was it like working with your old friend Viggo?
Well Viggo and I, we have a long term relationship and we’re also friends. We know each other very well and we’ve spent a lot of time together aside from movie making. So, at the same time we’re both perfectionists up to a point and when it comes to work we’re working as an actor-director relationship, but we do have a second hand. We do have a sort of a telepathic kind of understanding of each other because we’ve worked together so many times. I mean, he is a director himself, he’s a screenwriter, a musician, a poet, a publisher and so he approaches movie making that way. In other words, he’s not shy about commenting on the script even if it’s a scene that he, as his character is not in, and that’s unusual, not too many actors do that.
Why was he the right person to play Saul?
Well, now the fact that Viggo and I are friends and I think he’s a fabulous actor with his huge range still doesn’t mean that you can cast him in any role and that would be correct for him. It’s the same when he reads a script, even if it’s from me, a friend. It doesn’t mean that it’s a no-brainer and he will do the movie, it has to be something that works for him. As I say, ultimately casting is a black art, it’s a very mysterious thing. Once you’ve made the movie, if you’ve done it right, it’s almost impossible to see any other actor in that role.
Can you talk about Léa?
I originally offered the role of Timlin to Léa Seydoux. I had seen her in quite a few movies, and was interested in her as an actress and the structure of the movie was such that that role, several of the roles could be played by actresses or actors who had accents because they were either Greek or an African actor, like Welket had an accent from his country and the movie would support that. That was exciting to me because the language, the dialogue is very important in the movie despite the fact that it has special effects and so on…the dialogue is really quite critical. There’s a lot of talking in the movie, so Léa with a French accent, I was thinking that she would be a really beautiful textural addition to the movie. At a certain point we were talking to certain other actresses about playing the role of Caprice, who is Tenser’s performance partner and in some ways lover, it’s ambiguous in the film.
After Léa read the script, she was very excited to be in it and to work with me she said, ‘You know I’d really like to play Caprice.’ After I thought about it for awhile, I thought you know that’s actually a great idea so I changed my mind and Léa plays Caprice and Kristen Stewart plays Timlin. The dynamic between those two is really very interesting because obviously they’re very different, they come from very different places, they’re about the same age but Kristin’s very L.A. – American and Léa is very Parisian – French. You want an interesting dynamic, you want an interesting chemistry amongst your actors and that’s part of the art of casting is not just one person who is playing the lead.
To my non-surprise, Léa brought a great acting intelligence and culture to the role, along with an incredible emotional sense that I knew she would bring. It really transforms the character of Caprice. She’s still saying the same dialogue that was in the original script, but coming from Léa it has a depth and an emotional impact that other actresses would not have brought, they may have brought something else but not that, so it was very exciting working with her. She’s just a delight to work with.
Why did you make this such an ambiguous place and diverse people there?
I mean part of it comes from my living in Toronto, which has been multi-cultural since I can remember. Being born in 1943, you have to understand, and in a section of Toronto that became Italian but before that had been Jewish. So to me the globalism that is much discussed either as a good thing or a bad thing it’s happening, it’s inevitable. Part of that is the internet of course, the connections amongst people, it’s a huge change that you can be on social media and connect with people all over the world instantaneously. The cultures are interpenetrating each other and so my anticipation of any world of the future, but really as now is exactly this: that it should be not without its own unique individual character.
Globalism is becoming one bland simple thing, it’s not at all, it’s really quite complex and it’s constantly shifting and changing much like the human brain, so that was the feel that I wanted the movie to have. Though I wrote it thinking about shooting in Toronto, I still was suggesting this kind of alternate reality that became much more particular when we decided that we would shoot the film in Athens, Greece. I really embraced the textures of Athens and the graffiti and the streets and the ocean rather than try to fight it and make it be more like Toronto. I wanted it to be exactly like what it was. I visited Athens in late 1965 so as you know, half a century later, I’m back in Athens, it has of course changed a lot, but at the same time, it is an ancient city and so much of it is the same. It’s very exciting to do that, and I found it really stimulating to be working there. It really helped create the feel of the interiority of this movie and the city in the movie.
Did shooting during COVID add to the experience considering the topic of the movie?
Well shooting a movie during the era of COVID in itself is an incredibly interesting experience. I did some acting in a couple of things, a Star Trek: Discovery and also Slasher a Canadian series, and I was interested to act in those because I was anticipating making Crimes of the Future. Those two TV series were being shot under COVID protocol, so wearing masks, having constant tests, keeping social distancing and still making a movie, which is a very social experience was revealing to me because I could see that it was possible to do and that you would sort of get used to the rhythm of that and it wouldn’t hurt your filmmaking.
There was that and then of course there was the environmental disaster that continues, climate change which was causing forest fires in British Columbia and Canada, but was also causing forest fires in many places in Europe including Athens. The forests that were in the north and the south of the city of Athens were on fire one morning, I woke up and I looked out my hotel window and I couldn’t see anything, it was like total smoke… It was very scary. We managed to continue shooting and in a way it just confirmed the reality of, let’s say the philosophy of the movie we were making, that things are changing, they’re mutating, inside the human body as well as outside the human body. Just, the validity of the movie philosophically…of course it’s entertainment, but part of the entertainment is that it has a resonance with people.
How do you view the future now versus when you started your career?
The future? I have less of it. At seventy-eight I have less of a future than I had before, but I have often said that philosophically I’m an existentialist. I really think of myself that way, and part of the understanding what existentialism gives you as a philosophy is that we are constantly referring things to the future, we’re constantly looking to the future, and that is part of what keeps us going and keeps us sane. At the same time, it can prevent us from living in the present fully, we’re constantly anticipating what will happen, and so I try to do both in the films. I feel that movies are not really predictive, I mean they’re not prophetic, in some science fiction it is – science fiction writers, like Arthur C. Clarke.
For him it was a triumph that he predicted satellites and satellite communication. To him, that would fulfill some of what his writing was about. For me, that’s not my game, it’s more to understand what the human condition is now, and it can sometimes be illuminated by trying to see where we’ll go. Looking at the human condition and, and all its glory, and its many phases and trying to understand what it is to be alive is a crucial thing if you’re an existentialist. It’s like I’m at the seashore and I’m picking up seashells and I’m saying ‘whoa look at this one, this is really incredible, how did this creature create this thing?’ I don’t have the answers to anything, but I have the curiosity to look at things that other people don’t have time to look at, and I have the time to do that so that’s what I’m giving them.
Can you talk about working Carol and the creations?
One of the fun things about creating technology that doesn’t actually exist is designing the technology and anticipating how it might work and how it might not work. That’s really fun for me, it’s always there that filmmaking is a very childlike event, you’re like kids in a sandbox, you know and you’re dressing up in funny clothes and you’re putting on a mustache and you’re talking with a funny accent and you’re pretending to be people that you’re not. It’s very childlike, and you can get very serious and professional and all of those things about it, and you might lose sight of that childlike joy of creation, but it’s a mistake if you do. You really can tell which filmmakers are still in touch with that, and I am in touch with that.
I think undoubtedly there are connections between those effects that we have created physically and effects from movies in my past because it’s always the body that is the center of these things for me, and that is because as I say it’s easy to lose sight of what we are physically. So to emphasize that my feeling that technology is the human body, it comes from the human body, the technology that I tend to create in my films when I’m doing this as I’ve done on Videodrome or Existenz, tends to be very body-based, looks very organic, looks very physical, looks like it grew from cells. That is the designs that we have done for Crimes of the Future, and working once again with Carol Spier.
So given the designs that I was anticipating, and then they were described to some extent in the script, it was exciting to get to work with Carol Spier again. We literally have been working with each other for half a century and, and once again as with Viggo, you have a collaborator with Carol, a collaboration that’s gone on much longer so there is a shorthand and a telepathy. To make real these things that were in the script were just sort of suggestions of shapes and forms, and Carol, as usual, finds collaborators in her art department who can realize these things for us both.
One of the liberating aspects for me is my attitude towards my script as though it’s just a suggestion, it’s not like the Bible where it must be accurate, it’s not like Shakespeare. It is a process, and so there were suggestions in the script, for example there are performance artists who base their performances on their bodies in the script as was the case twenty years ago when I wrote the movie. That also held true for the very special bed which the lead character, played by Viggo, Saul Tenser, sleeps in because he has to have the bed constantly moving in his sleep because he’s experiencing pain, but the bed is so plugged into him that it can anticipate these painful episodes, and move him in order to alleviate the pain.
There’s a chair that does the same thing for him because he has eating problems, and he has to be moved around constantly so that he can eat. The designs for these that I suggested in the script were simplistic, very mechanical, and in design terms we ended up going much further with very organic and flesh like and bone like creations. These were designs that evolved over many months of discussion and attempts to make what was in the script work as it was written, and then could see it really wasn’t that effective when you try to make it physical, actually make the devices.
It is also something exciting to do physically as opposed to with just visual effects. I mean these days, and it’s been this way for quite a long time, computer effects, CGI, computer generated imagery are great tools, but when it’s overused you get the feeling that things are kind of cartoon-like. When they’re used in conjunction with physical effects that are actually there, that is for me the beauty of visuals effects, that you can really anticipate them on the set, you can add things so it’s a combination of physical effects, prosthetics that are applied to actors’ bodies. Then CG effects that add things to it that you couldn’t do physically, and the combination can be really very powerful, and we certainly went quite far with that in Crimes.
PRODUCTION NOTES
The Journey: 20 years in the making
Written and directed by David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, Crash), CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is a film more than 20 years in the making. The award-winning filmmaker originally wrote the script in 1999 but set it aside for two decades until deciding that now was the right moment to make the film. Says Cronenberg about revisiting the work, many years later, “Various elements have risen to the top of public consciousness around the world – like the fact, for example, that microplastics are in every human being on earth right now, because of what has happened to the oceans. That made me realize the film is more relevant than ever.”
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE sees Cronenberg join forces with a number of longtime collaborators including distinguished producer Robert Lantos (Barney’s Version, Eastern Promises, Crash), award-winning production designer Carol Spier (Crash, Dead Ringers) and three-time Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore (The Song Of Names, The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, A History of Violence). Familiar faces join Cronenberg in front of the camera, as well, including Viggo Mortensen, after his critically acclaimed work in Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method; and Don McKellar for a second time, following eXistenZ.
Lantos, who first read the script those many decades ago, was fundamental in convincing Cronenberg to make this film. “David likes to say that the reason he is making Crimes of The Future is because he has unfinished business with the future. For me, it’s because I have unfinished business with Cronenberg. We haven’t made a film together since Eastern Promises, but we have been talking about Crimes of The Future for some 20 years,” said Lantos. “To piece together a film of this ambition and complexity was a tall mountain to climb, made possible by three brilliant and courageous actors – Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart. They are prepared to take risks and stretches boundaries, and that kind of courage is what it took to get this film to where we are now.”
The Cronenberg Effect
“What attracts me to work with David is the uniqueness and boldness of his voice. A Cronenberg film couldn’t be somebody else’s, it’s not interchangeable,” states Lantos. Cronenberg is known for working with some of the industry’s most talented actors from across the globe. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE attracted a vibrant and energetic cast which includes Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux, and Scott Speedman, among others, who brilliantly met the task of bringing Cronenberg’s vision to life.
Viggo Mortensen, who has worked with Cronenberg four times, describes him as “one of the world’s most uniquely gifted filmmakers” and says he was drawn to the film “more than anything by the chance to work with David again.” Léa Seydoux, who had not worked with Cronenberg before, describes him as a visionary, and full of enthusiasm. “It meant a lot to me to work with Cronenberg because he’s such an iconic director,” she says. Similarly, this film marks the first time working with Cronenberg for Scott Speedman, and he deeply appreciated the freedom Cronenberg gave his actors to explore their characters, calling this, “one of my favourite director-actor experiences ever.”
Lihi Kornowski, who plays opposite Speedman as Lang’s troubled ex-wife Djuna, was excited to work with Cronenberg, as well, noting: “I’m a big fan, I have watched all of his films. Every single one of them is such a strong and bold statement on critical and timeless issues.” A staple of the Canadian film industry as both an actor and filmmaker, Don McKellar, who plays Wippet, says Cronenberg “knows how to keep everyone in the same world”. “For me as a Canadian director,” he continues, “David is THE example of a career in Canada… I wouldn’t have pursued my career without his example.”
About the Characters
Cronenberg is well-known for creating iconic and unique characters. Their originality is only further underlined by the creativity of the talent who are pitch perfect in translating the script to the screen.
As the main protagonist, Saul Tenser is a performance artist beloved for his events, which feature live surgery on the new organs his body generates. Portrayed by Mortensen, Saul is the central engine of the story. Mortensen describes him as “a groundbreaking, subversive artist who is keenly aware of the impact that his physical performances have on audiences,” and as a man with a “visceral desire to leave a public record of his accomplishments.”
Caprice, played by Léa Seydoux, is Saul’s partner and a former trauma surgeon who once saved his life. Seydoux defines her as, “a positive character because she wants to create beauty. She really believes in her art and that she can create beauty out of emptiness.” Together, “they unleash things in each other and become artists; they do performances where basically they cut organs out of Saul’s body.” Mortensen describes the relationship between Saul and Caprice as “a creative team, performance artists” who “work in a very underground world.”
Heading up the National Organ Registry is Timlin, played by Kristen Stewart, and Wippet, played by Don McKellar. Both are career bureaucrats who find themselves face to face with Saul, an artist they each admire in their own unique way. Timlin is rather demure in her initial approach but eventually loses control of her disciplined demeanor, whereas Wippet is much less subtle in his adulation. McKellar describes the film’s characters as very idiosyncratic, especially his role. “Wippet’s very enthusiastic, in an absurd and obsessive way,” he says. “But his obsession starts to take over, and that happens to a lot of these characters.”
For his part, Speedman enjoyed leaning into the unknown in playing the role of Lang Dotrice, a leader steeped in mystery, calling him “one of the most volatile characters” he’s ever played and that it’s “difficult to pin down what he’s after”. “He’s sort of ping-ponging through emotions, so it’s really hard to control, which for an actor is great,” Speedman says. “Because you can’t really control what you’re going to do, you just have to let it ride, trust the words and let it go and see where it takes you, which has been really fun for me.”
Welket Bungué brings the multi-layered Detective Cope to life; as a detective with the recently formed New Vice Unit of Justice, Bungué says Cope is “part of a bureaucratic system but he’s inventive and he brings a certain complexity.” Describing Cope as an ideologist, Bungué says the way the character was written gave him the space to show his skills as an actor and he “tried to play this character as a Shakespearean character.”
Router and Berst are the technical experts who maintain and repair the machines powering Saul’s everyday life, from his Breakfaster chair, to his OrchidBed bed, to the surgical devices in his art shows. Nadia Litz, who plays Router, calls the two characters “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but with drills” and loved what a multifaceted role it was. Playing Berst, Tanaya Beatty calls Cronenberg’s characters “almost dreamlike” in that they’re “difficult to pinpoint but then there’s something that you seem to understand, that speaks to you.”
Shooting in Greece
“I hadn’t been to Athens since 1965; there have been a lot of changes, of course, but the texture of the city is fantastic,” Cronenberg shares. “It’s an ancient city, so it has amazing locations and textures. For this film, we needed a big old city, with history everywhere – a city that has been lived in by millions and millions of people over many, many years. For me, a lot of movie-making is found art,” he continues. “You find things. Even right there on the day that you’re shooting. Or you’re looking for one location and by accident, you see another location that nobody has suggested. A lot of movie directing has to do with spaces – if you change the nature of the space, it really changes how you direct the movie.”
Collaborative Duo: Cronenberg X Spier
Production designer Carol Spier has worked with Cronenberg on almost every one of his films. “I’ve worked with David since Fast Company and have done just about every single film except for Spider and Cosmopolis because I was working on other films at the time. Because David and I have worked together for such a long time, we have kind of a shorthand – I understand what he likes, he knows what I can do for him and what I can’t do for him. He surprises me sometimes, but most of the time I know what he likes.” In creating Saul’s apartment, Spier thought that he should live in a place where he was protected from the environment, leading to a bunker-inspired set, but the shape came from the idea that it should be fluid, so curved walls. The main inspiration for his bedroom came from a photo she saw of the inside of a cello.
The film utilizes a powerful combination of visual effects and physical effects to bring the designs to life. “I knew from the beginning that this would be a combination of visual effects – both CGI and physical effects that were created as we did in the old days,” says Cronenberg. “CGI has become such an important tool in the toolbox of filmmaking, it’s used even when your movie is not a special effects movie. On the other hand, you’re often creating new things that did not physically exist on the set. For us, it’s a combination of that.”
On creating the world of CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, Cronenberg says, “That’s another part of the sci-fi game, you can establish any rules that you want – but you have to then be consistent and play by them. People who engage with this narrative will go along with anything as long as you are being honest within the narrative. And that’s the trick, that’s always the trick.”
The Audience
Cronenberg doesn’t create his films with his audience in mind, but on diving back into the sci-fi world, he says, “it’s always exciting to get people who are not sci-fi fans somehow being interested in your movie because they see in it something beyond a genre picture… It always has the potential to be more than just a very niche kind of film… Sci-fi and horror always have the potential to break out into a broader audience.”
“When I first read the script, I was instantly drawn to it, as it has the same kind of qualities that Crash does – it creates a universe of its own…in a way that only David can pull off,” Lantos says. “This movie is a special piece of writing that seems to pull together a lot of threads of David’s personal preoccupations,” Mortensen adds, “CRIMES OF THE FUTURE probably will be [Cronenberg’s] most autobiographical story.” Seydoux says, “everybody will have a different perspective on things” but describes the film’s message as, “a metaphor about creativity and art in general” and “that out of chaos you can create beauty and out of emptiness you can create meaning.” McKellar calls the film big and ambitious, saying, “it feels like the world is crumbling around us, which could be the present or it could be the near future” and calls CRIMES OF THE FUTURE “one of the more sci-fi things [Cronenberg]’s done in a while,” but that it doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a traditional sci-fi film. Lantos says, “it’s a film that will leave no one unmoved.”
CAST BIOS
VIGGO MORTENSEN (“Tenser”)
Viggo Mortensen has earned acclaim for his work in a wide range of films. Some of these include GREEN BOOK, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, as well as CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, EASTERN PROMISES, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, THE ROAD, APPALOOSA, FAR FROM MEN, THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Mortensen also received notable praise for his recent directorial debut FALLING, which he also wrote and produced. Next, in addition to CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, he will be seen starring in Ron Howard’s THIRTEEN LIVES, about the heroic rescue of the Thai youth soccer team from a flooded cave in 2018, as well as in EUREKA, the new movie from Lisandro Alonso, who directed him in JAUJA. Mortensen has received various nominations and awards from groups in addition to the Academy, including the Screen Actors Guild, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He is also a poet, photographer, painter, and the editor and publisher of Perceval Press, an independent company he founded in 2002.
LÉA SEYDOUX (“Caprice”)
Léa Seydoux reprised her role as ‘Madeleine Swann’ in the James Bond franchise, NO TIME TO DIE, opposite Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, and Lashana Lynch. Universal Pictures International released the film internationally and in the UK on September 30, 2021 and MGM/United Artists Releasing launched the picture in the US on October 8, 2021.
Additionally, Seydoux currently stars in the Wes Anderson film, THE FRENCH DISPATCH, alongside Adrien Brody and Benicio Del Toro. The story centers on a love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in “The French Dispatch” magazine. The film had its world premiere at the 74th Annual Cannes Film Festival on July 12, 2021, and Searchlight Pictures released the film in the US on October 22, 2021.
Seydoux most recently wrapped production on Mia Hansen-Løve’s UN BEAU MATIN, opposite Pascal Greggory, Nicole Garcia, and Melvil Poupaud. The romance film follows the story of a woman and her family as they navigate the struggles of finding a place for her father to live as he suffers from a neurodegenerative disease. Additionally, Seydoux stars as ‘L’Amante Anglaise’ in Arnaud Desplechin’s DECEPTION. Based on Philip Roth’s 1990 novel of the same name, the film follows an American novelist living in London who converses with his wife, mistress, and other female characters that he may have dreamed up.
The film had its world premiere at the 74th Annual Cannes Film Festival. Seydoux also stars in director Bruno Dumont’s FRANCE, which revolves around a celebrity journalist (Seydoux) whose life is overturned by a car accident. Further, Seydoux plays the role of ‘Lizzy’ in director Ildikó Enyedi’s drama THE STORY OF MY WIFE, opposite Gijs Naber, Louis Garrel, Josef Hader, Sergio Rubini, and Jasmine Trinca. Based on the novel of the same name, the story follows a sea captain who makes a bet with a friend that he will marry the first woman who walks inside. Both films had their world premieres at the 74th Annual Cannes Film Festival in July.
Seydoux was previously seen in Drake Doremus’ ZOE opposite Ewan McGregor, and Thomas Vinterburg’s KURSK opposite Colin Firth and Matthias Schoenaerts. She starred alongside Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel and Gaspard Ulliel in Xavier Dolan’s IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD, winner of the Grand Prix and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes. Other credits include Mosco Boucault’s French Drama, OH MERCY!, Sam Mendes’ SPECTRE, Benoît Jacquot’s DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER, opposite Rachel Weisz, Colin Farrell, and John C. Reilly, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
In 2014, Seydoux starred in several films including Bertrand Bonello’s SAINT LAURENT, which was nominated for several awards at Cannes; Wes Anderson’s THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL opposite Ed Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, and Billy Murray, which went on to win four Oscars; Christophe Gans’ BEAUTY AND THE BEAST alongside Vincent Cassel, winning the César Award for “Best Production Design.”
In 2013, Seydoux starred opposite Adèle Exarchopoulos in Abdellatif Kechiche’s BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR. The French romantic coming-of-age drama was the first film to have the Palme d’Or awarded to both the director and the lead actresses, with Seydoux and Exarchopoulos becoming the only women (apart from director Jane Campion) to have ever won the award.
Seydoux’s other credits include Brad Bird’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL opposite Tom Cruise; Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS opposite Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender; Ridley Scott’s ROBIN HOOD opposite Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. Seydoux is currently featured as one of the faces of Louis Vuitton.
KRISTEN STEWART (“Timlin”)
Kristen Stewart is one of the most accomplished, talented, and in-demand actresses in Hollywood. Stewart
currently stars as Princess Diana in NEON’s Spencer, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, released in th
theaters on November 5 , 2021, and has earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Stewart is about to begin production on a sci-fi love story opposite Steven Yeun. She is also co-writing and directing The Chronology of Water, based on the memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch.
In 2015, she became the first American actress to be awarded a César Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria, which she starred in alongside Juliette Binoche. She received several other accolades for Clouds of Sils Maria including the Best Supporting Actress prize for NYFCC, BSFC, BOFCA, and NSFC. In January 2017, Stewart made her directorial debut with Come Swim, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
Stewart was introduced to worldwide audiences in 2002 with her gripping performance alongside Jodie Foster in Panic Room. Her star took a huge rise when she starred as Bella Swan in the hit franchise The Twilight Saga. The series has grossed over $3.3 billion in worldwide receipts and consists of five motion pictures. She also starred in Universal’s box office winner Snow White and The Huntsman, and in Walter Salles’ screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
Kristen’s career has displayed a challenging assortment of characters in additional films including: Adventureland, Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, The Runaways, Welcome to the Rileys, The Cake Eaters, The Yellow Handkerchief, What Just Happened, In The Land of Women, The Messengers, Zathura, Speak, Fierce People, Catch That Kid, Undertow, Cold Creek Manor, The Safety of Objects, Camp X-Ray, Still Alice, Anesthesia, American Ultra, Equals, Ang Lee’s War/Drama, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and Lizzie. Notable more recent credits include Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, Woody Allen’s Café Society, Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, JT Leroy, SONY’s Charlie’s Angels, Seberg, Underwater, and Clea DuVall’s Happiest Season. Stewart resides in Los Angeles.
SCOTT SPEEDMAN (“Lang Dotrice”)
Scott Speedman continues to captivate audiences on both the big and small screens. He can currently be seen in season three of the popular Netflix series, You, which premiered on Netflix on October 15, 2021. Speedman also made a return to season 18 of ABC’s long-standing medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, reprising his role as “Dr. Nick Marsh”, a transplant surgeon and potential love interest to Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey. The newest season premiered on September 30, 2021, with Speedman’s reprisal coming as a surprise to fans and critics alike. Speedman is now a series regular and will continue to appear in the rest of the season.
Most recently Speedman was seen in Lena Dunham’s Sharp Stick, starring alongside Jon Bernthal, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Dunham, among others. He can also be seen in a supporting role in Lina Roessler’s directorial debut Best Sellers, starring opposite Aubrey Plaza and Michael Caine. The film, based on Anthony Grieco’s original screenplay, won the 2015 Nicholl Fellowship and had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in March 2021. In 2019, Speedman starred alongside Ben Platt, Mena Massoud, Nina Dobrev and Damian Lewis in the political drama Run This Town. Written and directed by Ricky Tollman, the film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 9, 2019 and was released commercially on March 6, 2020.
Speedman may be best known for his role as “Ben Covington” in the wildly popular Golden Globe nominated drama, Felicity, opposite Keri Russell and Scott Foley, that had a successful four-season run. In 2018, Speedman was seen on television in TNT’s Animal Kingdom, which he starred opposite Ellen Barkin, and in 2012, Speedman was co-lead of ABC’s Last Resort.
Other film credits include box office hits and worldwide blockbusters Underworld and Underworld: Evolution opposite Kate Beckinsale, the horror smash The Strangers opposite Liv Tyler, and The Vow with Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum; Atom Egoyan’s The Captive, an official main competition selection of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, opposite Ryan Reynolds; Barefoot opposite Evan Rachel Wood for director Andrew Fleming; Citizen Gangster playing the title role of Canada’s most infamous bank robber; Lluis Quilez’s Out Of The Dark opposite Julia Stiles; Barney’s Version opposite Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman; Mary Harron’s The Moth Diaries, Henry Miller’s Anamorph opposite Willem Dafoe, Jacob Tierney’s Good Neighbors opposite Jay Baruchel, Allan Moyle’s Weirdsville opposite Wes Bentley, Ron Shelton’s Dark Blue opposite Kurt Russell, Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me, opposite Sarah Polley, Tony Piccirillo’s The 24th Day, opposite James Marsden, Bruce Paltrow’s Duets, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Lee Tamahori’s XXX: State Of The Union and Gary Burns’ Kitchen Party. Speedman currently resides in Los Angeles.
WELKET BENGUÉ (“Detective Cope”)
Welket Bungué is a Portuguese-Guinean actor and director based in Berlin. Born in Guinea-Bissau in 1988, he holds a degree in Theatre from the Actors branch (ESTC / Lisbon), and a postgraduate degree in Performance (UniRio / Brazil). He is a Permanent Member of the Portuguese Academy of Cinema since 2015, a member of the Deutsche Filmakademie since 2020, and became a member of the European Film Academy in 2021. In 2019, he was awarded an “Angela Award – On The Move” at the Subtitle EFF in Kilkenny (Ireland) by Richard Cook and Steve Cash.
In 2020, Bungué starred in BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, directed by Burhan Qurbani, which earned him a nomination as “Best Male Lead” at the LOLA awards of the German Film Academy (Deutscher Filmpreis), and a “Aluminum Horse Prize” for “Best Actor” at the Stockholm Intl. Film Festival. He has also starred in JOAQUIM by Marcelo Gomes (Intl. Competition Berlinale 2017), BODY ELECTRIC (IFFR 2017), KAMINEY (2009) by Vishaal Bahardwaj, and LETTERS FROM WAR (Intl. Competition Berlinale 2016) by Ivo M. Ferreira. Since 2021, Bungué’s film works are represented by ARSENAL – Institut für Film und Videokunst (Institute for Film and Video Art, in Berlin). Bungué is the co-founder of Kussa Productions.
DON MCKELLAR (“Wippet”)
Don McKellar has had a multifaceted career as a writer, director and actor. He was the screenwriter of Roadkill and Highway 61, and co-writer of Dance Me Outside, the Genie Award-winning Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould and The Red Violin (he also appeared in the latter two). He received a Genie Award as Best Supporting Actor for his role in Atom Egoyan’s Exotica and the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He also wrote, directed and played the lead in his second film, Childstar.
His stage writing credits include the five plays he co-created with the Augusta Company and the book for the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, for which he won a Tony Award. He also wrote and starred in the CBC television series Twitch City. Other film and television appearances include David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies and the series Slings and Arrows for the Sundance Channel.
He collaborated on the film adaptation of Jose Saramago’s Nobel Prize-winning novel Blindness. Directed by Fernando Mereilles, he starred alongside Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal and Mark Ruffalo. He also directed the Max Films feature The Grand Seduction, for which he won a DGC Award for Best Direction in 2014.
His recent work includes the Serendipity Point Films feature Through Black Spruce, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He has also directed, and executive produced the CSA nominated series Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays for CBC and Sensitive Skin, starring Kim Cattrall, for TMN. Currently he is writing the series The Blue Wing for Cineflix and CBC, and The Sympathizer for Rhombus Media and A24.
TANAYA BEATTY (“Berst”)
Tanaya Beatty is an emerging First Nations actress from the small town of Midway, British Columbia which averages about 500 people. At five years old, Tanaya had one line in a local theatre production and from that experience she knew what her calling would be. Tanaya went on to graduate from the Vancouver Film School Acting Program.
Immediately prior, she shot two independent features back-to-back, which included Murder at Emigrant Gulch, opposite Gabriel Byrne, Thomas Jane, and Nat Wolff, as well as the feature God’s Country, alongside Thandie Newton. Tanaya also stars in the feature film Through Black Spruce, playing the lead role of “Annie”, a self-reliant small-town girl in search of her missing sister. The film premiered at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival. It was directed by Don McKellar and based on the Giller Prize winning novel of the same name.
Other feature credits include roles in Scott Cooper’s film Hostiles opposite Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike which premiered at both Telluride and TIFF. She also starred in Francois Girard’s arthouse film Hochelaga: Land of Souls, which also premiered at TIFF in 2017.
On the TV side, Tanaya can currently be seen in Paramount Network’s hit series, Yellowstone, created by Taylor Sheridan and starring Kevin Costner. She was a series regular on NBC’s The Night Shift where she played the feisty emergency room doctor, “Shannon Rivera”. Tanaya was also cast as the lead female role of ‘Sacagawea’ in HBO’s Lewis and Clark miniseries opposite Casey Affleck.
NADIA LITZ (“Router”)
Nadia Litz is a Canadian/British actress, screenwriter and director known for her artistic, award-winning and often intense performances in Canadian independent cinema and unique roles in international festival films by auteurs like Nicholas Winding Refn and Fernando Mierelles. She wrote and directed her feature The People Garden which was produced by long-time collaborator Scythia Films (The Witch, Falling) and stars Dree Hemingway (Starlet, Listen Up Philip), James Le Gros (Drugstore Cowboy) and Pamela Anderson.
Described by critics as having an “eerie Lynchian atmosphere” and “like Lost in Translation directed by Sergio Leone” it was shot in Canada and Japan, won the audience award at TIFF’s Screenwriter Lab and was released by Orion Pictures. Litz’s work has often engaged with satire and foreboding and with characters confronting the narrative they’ve told themselves about their life. Her next feature The Story Of Polly Childs As Told By Her Enemies is about the disappearance and presumed suicide of a young female musician in the 1960s folk scene and is expected to go to camera in 2022.
LIHI KORNOWSKI (“Djuna”)
Lihi Kornowski is the breakout star of the Apple TV+ Israeli series Losing Alice, in which she portrays the femme fatale ‘Sophie’. Next Lihi will shoot Jeremy Rush’s TV series, Ballistic, opposite Jennifer Carpenter, for New Regency and Automatik.
Lihi is also attached to star in Emil Ben-Shimon’s period drama thriller Jerusalem ’67, which is set during the dramatic and difficult time of the Six-Day War. It is the first narrative feature about the Six-Day War, which was fought between Israel and Jordan, Syria, and Egypt from June 5-10, 1967. Lihi will play a 30-year-old civilian who places herself on the war’s front lines.
Kornowski can currently be seen on the Israeli series Who Died? and prior film credits include The Burglar, for which Lihi was nominated for the 2016 Israeli Film Academy Award for Best Actress. Based in Tel Aviv, Lihi started her performance career as an opera singer and is bilingual in Hebrew and English (fully fluent).
CREATIVE BIOS
David Cronenberg WRITER/DIRECTOR
DAVID CRONENBERG’s reputation as an authentic auteur has been firmly established by his unique body of work, which includes: Shivers, Rabid, Fast Company, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, eXistenz, The Dead Zone, M. Butterfly, Spider, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis, Maps to the Stars and now Crimes of the Future. In 1991, Cronenberg received the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival for Naked Lunch and won the award again in 1999 for eXistenZ. Cronenberg’s films Crash, Spider, A History of Violence and Cosmopolis have all been in competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1996, Crash received a Special Jury Prize from the festival and, in 2014, Julianne Moore won the festival’s top prize for Best Actress in Maps To The Stars. In 2011, A Dangerous Method was nominated for a Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and the festival presented Cronenberg with the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018.
Frequently lauded as one of the world’s greatest and most influential directors, Cronenberg’s films have earned him critical praise and international recognition. In 1999, he presided over the Cannes Film Festival jury and, in 2006, he was awarded the festival’s lifetime achievement award, the Carrosse d’Or. Collectively, his films have been nominated for four Academy Awards, with a win for The Fly for Best Makeup; they have received six Golden Globe nominations and BAFTA and César Award nominations for A History of Violence and Eastern Promises; as well as prizes from the Toronto International Film Festival, the Directors Guild of Canada and Canada’s Genie Awards.
In 2006, Cronenberg worked with the Art Gallery of Ontario as a guest curator for the exhibition, Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962- 1964. Further challenging himself outside the realm of film, David brought the opera of The Fly to the stage for the Théâtre du Châtelet and LA Opera in 2008. Turning his hand to fiction in 2014, David debuted his first novel, Consumed. The inventive and disturbing work was mounted as a stage play by Theatre Bremen in 2015 and is currently being developed as a feature film.
Recognition of Cronenberg’s contribution to art and culture has included an appointment as an Officer to the Order of Canada in 2003, a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2014, investiture in France’s Order of Arts and Letters in 1990 and the Légion d’Honneur in 2009. Cronenberg was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in 2011.
Robert Lantos
PRODUCER
In 1972, while still a student at McGill University, Robert Lantos co-founded the company that grew into Alliance Communications Corporation, of which he was chairman and CEO. Alliance was Canada’s leading film and television production / distribution company and specialty broadcaster until Lantos sold his controlling interest in 1998, following which he founded Serendipity Point Films.
Four of his films – The Sweet Hereafter, Being Julia, Eastern Promises and Barney’s Version – have received Academy Award Nominations, while Sunshine and Eastern Promises were nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture, and Being Julia and Barney’s Version each won Golden Globes for Best Actress and Best Actor.
Ten of his films have been in the Official Cannes Selection, where The Sweet Hereafter won the Grand Prix and the International Critics Prize, Crash won a Special Jury Prize, and Adoration won the Ecumenical Prize. Two of his films have won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival: eXistenZ and Museo. Barney’s Version and Remember were both in the official competition at the Venice Film Festival, where Barney’s Version won the Audience Award. Mr. Lantos has won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Picture on four occasions with Black Robe, The Sweet Hereafter, Sunshine and Ararat. In the 1980s and 90s Mr. Lantos was responsible for numerous long running TV series such as Night Heat (the first Canadian drama series on a U.S. network), Bordertown, Counterstrike, Due South, and North of 60.
Collectively, these series have won the Gemini Award for Best Television Drama ten times. His made-for- television movies and mini-series include Sword of Gideon (HBO), Shot Through The Heart (HBO), The Hunchback (TNT), Woman on the Run (NBC) and Family of Strangers (CBS).
Mr. Lantos is a member of the Order of Canada, is a recipient of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts Award, The Toronto Arts Award and has received the Academy of Canadian Film and Television’s Award for “Outstanding Contribution to the Business of Filmmaking”. He is an inductee in the Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, European Film Academy and holds honorary doctorates from both McGill University and Haifa University.
About SERENDIPITY POINT FILMS
Toronto-based Serendipity Point Films produces theatrical feature films. Its credits include: François Girard’s The Song Of Names, winner of five Canadian Screen Awards, starring Tim Roth and Clive Owen; Alonso Ruizpalacios’ Museo, a Berlin Festival Silver Bear Award winner, starring Gael García Bernal; Atom Egoyan’s Remember, a Venice Audience Award winner, starring Christopher Plummer; Richard J. Lewis’ Barney’s Version, an Oscar Nominee and Golden Globe Winner, starring Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, and Paul Giamatti; Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, a Cannes Award winner; Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces, a Rome Festival winner; David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, an Oscar nominee, starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel; Atom Egoyan’s Where The Truth Lies, a Cannes Competition Selection, starring Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon; István Szabó’s Being Julia, an Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner, starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons; Norman Jewison’s The Statement, a National Board of Review Award winner, starring Michael Caine and Tilda Swinton; Atom Egoyan’s Ararat, a Cannes official selection, starring Christopher Plummer and Charles Aznavour; István Szabó’s Sunshine, a Golden Globe Nominee and European Film Award winner, starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz; Stardom, a Cannes official selection, directed by Denys Arcand; David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, a Berlin Festival Silver Bear Award winner, starring Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Willem Dafoe; For more information, please visit, www.serendipitypoint.com.
About ARGONAUTS PRODUCTIONS SA
Founded in 2003, Argonauts Productions is one of the leading audiovisual production companies in Greece, based in Athens. Over the years, Argonauts has produced and co-produced more than 50 domestic and international feature films and tv series selected in acclaimed international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, London, and Toronto, and has made successful box office hits. Argonauts has been actively involved in international co-productions with France, Germany, Canada, Belgium, UK, China, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and Cyprus.