Un couteau dans le cœur
(Knife + Heart)

Film program, FR 2018, 102 min., fr. OV + engl. UT

By: Yann Gonzalez

With: Vanessa Paradis, Nicolas Maury, Kate Moran, Jonathan Genet

The best lesbian film of the year is also a grandiose homage to the gay porn film of the 70s and the cinema tradition of Giallo – the fetishistically sexualised Italian crime films of the same epoch. Paris, summer 1979. Filmmaker Anne (Vanessa Paradis) earns her living as a director and producer of gay porn films – disqualified by some as trash, celebrated by others as masterpieces. When her girlfriend and congenial collaborator Loïs leaves her, Anne decides to win her back with an ambitious film project. But a brutal murder series overshadows the shooting: a mysterious killer, armed with a dildo with a snap blade, decimates cast and crew. When police investigations don‘t progress, Anne plans to set a trap for the murderer herself.

For his second feature film, French director Yann Gonzalez creates a visually stunning cinephile labyrinth of lusts and traumas that was celebrated in Cannes.