After her 2021 breakout in The Worst Particular person within the World, Renate Reinsve’s 2022 and 2023 appeared pretty quiet for the viewer, however she was engaged on no scarcity of initiatives that lastly noticed the sunshine of day this 12 months. Following A Totally different Man, Dealing with the Undead, One other Finish, and Presumed Harmless, she leads Armand, which marks the function debut from Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. Norway’s choice for Greatest Worldwide Movie was picked up by IFC, who’ve unveiled the primary trailer and information that they’ll launch the Cannes choice for a qualifying run in NYC beginning November 29, adopted by a restricted launch on February 7 and a large launch on February 14 subsequent 12 months.
Right here’s the synopsis: “When defamed actress Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) is abruptly called into a parent-teacher meeting after hours, she is presented with scathing allegations that trigger a tangled web of accusations between parents and faculty. As Elisabeth struggles to uncover the truth amid the empty school rooms and dark corridors, a chaotic fight for redemption arises where desire, madness and obsession prevail.”
Savina Petkova mentioned in her Cannes overview, “How is a child’s life different from that of adults today? What is it like growing up around stimuli, in a world that is always-online, and with varying degrees of supervision? Is complete safeguarding even possible? These are questions contemporary cinema has been asking a lot in the last few years. Many classroom dramas, including 2023’s The Teacher’s Lounge, have explored complex ways the in-and-out-of-school dynamics intertwine, usually through the prism of a single incident. Armand, by Halfdan Ullmann Tønde, opts for that micro-as-macro approach and refuses to pass any judgment. As a result the film stays in this moral limbo between truth and lie, accusation and defense, instead zooming into its characters’ psychological states. Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) has been summoned to an emergency parent-teacher meeting after her six-year-old son Armand is accused of crossing boundaries with his classmate Jon. What actually happened, we do not know.”
See the trailer beneath.
