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We’re pleased to exclusively announce that Altered Innocence has acquired the restoration of the critically lauded queer film By Hook or by Crook ahead of its world premiere restoration screening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on December 5, 2024. Altered Innocence has exclusively acquired all North American rights, with a planned theatrical release in Spring 2025.

By Hook or by Crook marks the feature film debut of three iconic queer filmmakers: film & TV director Silas Howard; author, visual artist and Guggenheim fellow Harry Dodge; and Emmy nominated producer Steak House.

The film’s new restoration will world premiere on Thursday, December 5th, 2024 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures as part of their upcoming series Present Past: A Celebration of Film Preservation. Pioneering musician and writer Kathleen Hannah will moderate a post-screening discussion with the filmmakers.

The film has been digitally restored by the Academy Film Archive and UCLA Film & Television Archive...

Arnold Schwarzenegger's cult-classic Conan the Barbarian has been reimagined in ultimate queer-cinema glory. The Legend of Conan may not be happening, but it seems the cinematic legend lives on in other ways. Enter She Is Conann (originally titled just "Conann"), a multi-language new feature film that quickly becomes a bold LGBTQ+ celebration. Mainstream viewers might quickly exit, but if you stick with it, experimental filmmaker Bertrand Mandico's new feature also evolves into a symbolic statement on the art world, especially in relation to iconic figures (both real and fictitious).

Barbaric Beauty on Lush 35mm

She Is Conann 3.5/5 Release DateFebruary 4, 2024DirectorBertrand MandicoCastElina Lwensohn, Christa Thret, Julia Riedler, Claire DuburcqRuntime1hr 45minMain GenreActionWritersBertrand MandicoStudioLes Films Fauves, Ecce Films, Flor, al ProsFilming in 35mm with cosmic wardrobes and excellent camera work is a highlight.The slow-burn buildup to the third act is well worth it.Director Bertrand Mandico blends multiple genres...

French auteur Bertrand Mandico has earned a reputation as one of contemporary cinema's most intriguing and inventive talents. With an extensive portfolio of experimental short films under his belt, Mandico first gained widespread recognition through his feature-length debut, Wild Boys. This film set the stage for his unique cinematic vision, one that employs a surrealistic approach to merge narrative and form in a manner that eschews naturalism. His subsequent work, After Blue, further explored this dreamlike narrative structure, imbued with a complexity of themes. Mandico returned to Locarno with his latest work, She Is Conann (orig. title: Connan),  while also screening the complete Barbarian cycle, in which She Is Conann serves as a central element. Though the film bears a fleeting resemblance to Robert E. Howard's creation, Mandico...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Decadent, hermetic, and gleefully hostile to realism, French writer-director Bertrand Mandico’s She Is Conann is the cinematic equivalent of a French Symbolist poem. Throughout, the oneiric imagery seeping from every frame takes precedence over narrative linearity. And yet, even as the film embodies the self-indulgent ideal of art for art’s sake, it devours itself from within and drops the viewer back into the arena of politics.

Lest we forget even for moment that we’re watching a film, She Is Conann is shot in black and white, aside from the sporadic flash of violence and one framing sequence set in hell’s antechamber, where a dead Conann (Françoise Brion) takes stock of her life of barbarism. For her guide, there’s the dog-headed punk clairvoyant Rainer (Elina Löwensohn), whose name could be an allusion to Rainer Maria Rilke or Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Their dialogue at any given moment...

The Wild Boys director Bertrand Mandico returned earlier this year, debuting his 35mm-shot queer fantasy She Is Conann at Cannes Film Festival. Now set for a February 2 release in NY, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver and more, with the director and star Elina Löwensohn in person at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives, the new trailer has arrived from Altered Innocence.

Savina Petkova said in her review, “Following The Wild Boys and After Blue, Conann marks the third feature-length project from prolific shorts filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. Many are still not convinced long-form fits his intense and imaginative style, but what’s certain is that Conann makes one heck of a watch. Part of the self-contained cosmos of Mandico’s explosive vision, this new film is a provocative tale of endurance and self-discovery inspired by the fantasy character Conan the Barbarian (or the Cimmerian). Mandico takes the figure of a sword and...

Forget the riddle of steel, here’s the riddle of glitter: Bertrand Mandico‘s “She Is Conann” finally hits theaters next month after a rousing run on the 2023 festival circuit. Premiering at Cannes and screening at Fantastic Fest, Locarno, and more, Mandico’s latest is a gender-swapped take on Robert E. Howard‘s infamous Conan The Barbarian, immortalized in John Milius‘ 1982 film.

Continue reading ‘She Is Conann’ Trailer: Bertrand Mandico’s Queer Epic Fantasy Takes Select Theaters By Storm On February 2 at The Playlist.

“She Is Conann” is a new science fiction fantasy thriller feature, directed by Bertrand Mandico, starring Claire Duburcq, Christa Théret, Sandra Parfait, Agata Buzek, Nathalie Richard, Françoise Brion, Julia Riedler and Elina Löwensohn, releasing February 2, 2024 in theaters:

“…traveling through the abyss, underworld dog ‘Rainer’ recounts the six lives of ‘Conann’, perpetually put to death by her own future, across eras, myths and ages.

‘Follow her, from her childhood as a slave of ‘Sanja’ and her barbarian horde…

“…to her accession to the summits of cruelty at the doors of our world…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

"Six lives. Six incarnations." Altered Innocence has revealed the US trailer for a wild & crazy experimental French film called She Is Conann, a unique re-imagining of the classic Conan the Barbarian myth through a modern gender-swapped lens. Yes, you read that right! This premireed at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival last year in Directors' Fortnight, with stops at Fantastic Fest and Sitges. It'll be opening in February in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, and more, with director Bertrand Mandico and the star at opening weekend showings at Anthology Film Archives in NYC. Conan's life at different stages is shown with a different aesthetic and rhythm from the classic Sumerian era to the near future. The film is a barbaric fantasy sci-fi trip that boldly celebrates the influences of Fellini Satyricon, The Night Porter, The Hunger, and Fassbinder’s entire oeuvre to craft a moving portrait of a warrior...

Fiction's most famous barbarian gets reimagined by avant-garde auteur Bertrand Mandico in the new trailer for She Is Conann. The mind-bending, century-spanning epic will premiere in US theaters on February 2. In the new trailer for Mandico's re-envisioning of the Conan mythos, we see the familiar origins of Conan (or Conann); orphaned and enslaved by the barbarian queen Sanja (Julia Riedler) at a young age, she becomes the fiercest and most cunning warrior of her bygone era.

Experimental French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico isn’t for everyone — i.e. an acquired taste whose visions push boundaries of cinematic expression — but he’s achieved something of a cult fandom over the last three decades. After last pairing with the director on 2022’s “After Blue” and 2017’s uninhibited Venice winner “The Wild Boys” — Cahiers du Cinéma’s top film of 2018 — the distributor Altered Innocence again teams with Mandico on another provocation. His 2023 Cannes premiere “She Is Conann,” nominated for the Queer Palm before going on to play at other festivals including Locarno, is an acid-trip transgressive riff on the Conan the Barbarian myth. IndieWire shares the trailer here.

Influences on the film include Tony Scott’s “The Hunger,” the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Liliana Cavani’s “The Night Porter,” and Fellini’s “Satyricon.” Throw Ken Russell in there for good measure, with profane images in “She Is Conann” reminiscent of “The Devils.

The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival announced an impressive full slate of programming for its 2023 edition, running October 12-19 with all screenings held at Nitehawk Cinema’s Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations.

From the press release:

Audiences are in for an unearthly lineup of films and events, including the inaugural Leviathan Award, which will be presented to NYC horror legend William Lustig at a special 35th anniversary screening of Maniac Cop, followed by a post-screening conversation with Lustig.

The Opening Night film is the World Premiere of Kill Your Lover from directors Alix Austin and Kier Siewert, who previously announced themselves to the Bhff audience last year with their short film Sucker. The 2023 festival boasts the World Premieres of three more exciting new films: Gaia director Jaco Bouwer’s unsettling Breathing In, Aimee Kuge’s audacious debut Cannibal Mukbang, and Tyler Chipman’s powerfully creepy debut The Shade. The festival’s...

It's the most fantastic time of the year once again, when the fans of the creepy, the weird, the fun, and the bizarre gather in Austin Texas to celebrate a whole week of the best genre cinema has to offer during another iteration of Fantastic Fest.

The ongoing double strike of SAG-AFTRA and the WGA, and the studios' stupid refusal to negotiate already, put all the fall film festivals in doubt. Still, the lineup for this year's Fantastic Fest seems to maintain the expected balance of big genre premieres, international titles, small indies, and all-around weird stuff.

Possibly the biggest announcement is the triumphant return of Mike Flanagan to Austin with the first two episodes of his last Netflix show, "The Fall of the House of Usher," which boasts the most impressive cast for a Flanagan joint yet. The last time the filmmaker was at the festival was with...

Altered Innocence has picked up North American rights to Bertrand Mandico’s gory, transgressive fantasy movie “Conann,” which had its world premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and will soon be making its way to Locarno Film Festival. Kinology is handling world sales.

The film will tour at film festivals throughout the fall and be released theatrically next year.

Following different iterations of the ruthless Connan the Barbarian, the film also stars Elina Löwensohn in canine prosthetics as Rainer, Conann’s spiritual guide.

In the film, guardian of the underworld, Cerberus, still has a muzzle, but here he is called Rainer, and has the breasts and the voice of a woman, wears a studded black leather jacket, and a flash camera fit for the paparazzi. Talking to us from the great beyond, he details the successive reincarnations of Conann the Barbarian, a bloodthirsty Amazon from ancient times.

“A visceral and impulsive queer illusionist,...

Following The Wild Boys and After Blue, Conann marks the third feature-length project from prolific shorts filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. Many are still not convinced long-form fits his intense and imaginative style, but what’s certain is that Conann makes one heck of a watch. Part of the self-contained cosmos of Mandico’s explosive vision, this new film is a provocative tale of endurance and self-discovery inspired by the fantasy character Conan the Barbarian (or the Cimmerian). Mandico takes the figure of a sword and sorcery hero––obviously interested in his pulp magazine origins––and fashions a timeless, iterative narrative of phantasmagoric fluidity… and glitter.

Conann is framed by a first-person narration, that of Rainer the hellhound (Elina Löwensohn in impressive dog-faced costume), who roams the netherworld and is suspiciously attracted to the main protagonist, however antagonistic he may appear. But the hero is Conann, a queer rendition of an otherwise masculine symbol,...

How did John Cameron Mitchell become the head of this year’s Queer Palm award jury in Cannes? “Sexual favors,” he quips.

While the director of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” (which played out of competition at Cannes) is joking, sexuality is at the heart of one of the world’s most prestigious LGBTQ+ film awards. And with more anti-queer legislation being enacted around the world than at any time in recent memory, the attention it brings to films that humanize this scapegoated population is arguably more important than ever.

“The Queer Palm, the festival and any awards help to dignify work, so that it often can be distributed and sometimes celebrated in its own queer-phobic country,” says Mitchell, who helped start a queer dance night at the American Pavilion in 2004 and DJs when he’s in town. “[The trans-themed] ‘Joyland’ was banned in...