IFC Midnight is proud to present EVOLUTION, Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s evocative, mysterious latest feature film. The film’s world premiere took place at the Toronto International Film Festival, and marked the very welcome return of Hadzihalilovic’s (INNOCENCE) distinct voice on the international cinematic stage. The film went on to enthrall audiences at Fantastic Fest, BFI London Film Festival, the San Sebastian International Film Festival where it won the “Special Jury Prize” as well as “Best Cinematography”, and at the Dublin International Festival where it won “Best Director.” EVOLUTION will open in theaters on November 25th at the IFC Center and Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, and on VOD.
This eerily seductive mind-bender is a dark, dreamlike descent into the depths of the unknown. Ten-year-old Nicolas (Max Brebant) lives in a remote seaside village populated only by boys his age and adult women. But when he makes a disturbing discovery beneath the ocean waves-a dead boy with a red starfish on his stomach-Nicolas begins to question everything about his existence. What are the half-remembered images he recalls, as if from another life? If the woman he lives with is not his mother, then who is she? And what awaits the boys when they are all suddenly confined to a hospital? The long-awaited new film from the acclaimed director of INNOCENCE is awash in the haunting, otherworldly images of a nightmare.
ABOUT LUCILE HADZIHALILOVIC
Lucile Hadzihalilović passed her childhood and adolescence in Morocco, before moving to Paris where she studied first art history, then film at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (now la Fémis). In the early 1990s she founded the production company LES CINEMAS DE LA ZONE with Gaspar Noé, with whom she worked on CARNE and I STAND ALONE. Their collaboration continued with her contribution to the screenplay of Noé’s ENTER THE VOID. In 1996 Hadzihalilović produced, wrote, edited and directed LA BOUCHE DE JEAN-PIERRE (MIMI), a 52-minute award-winning film that screened in Un Certain Regard, at Cannes, and won the Prix SACD at Avignon Film Festival. In 2004, she directed the feature film INNOCENCE, which won the Best New Director Prize at San Sebastian International Film Festival, the Bronze Horse for Best Film and the Best Cinematography Prize (for Benoit Debie) at the Stockholm Film Festival, the FIPRESCI Prize and People’s Choice Award at Istanbul International Film Festival, the Best Film Award at Neuchâtel International Fantasy Film Festival, and the Special Jury Prize at the Yubari Festival, Japan. She has also directed two short films GOOD BOYS USE CONDOMS(1998) and NECTAR (2014) selected in numerous festivals. In 2015, she directed EVOLUTION, co-written with Alanté Kavaïté and in collaboration Geoff Cox, and produced by Les films du Worso, Noodles Production, Volcano Films, Scope Pictures and Left Field Ventures. The screenplay was awarded the NHK / Sundance Prize in 2009 and opens theatrically starting Nov. 25th courtesy of IFC Midnight.
