Premiering at Berlinale earlier this year to a controversial response, Isabelle Stever’s Grand Jeté captures a taboo mother-son romance relationship, recalling other daring European dramas like Christophe Honoré’s Ma mère and Bertrand Blier’s Beau Pere. Now picked up by Altered Innocence for a theatrical release beginning in LA on September 20 at Laemmle Royal and coming to VOD on October 25, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the striking trailer.
The film follows Nadja (Sarah Nevada Grether), an aspiring ballerina with the scars to prove it. A masochistic pursuit at her dream career has left her body battered, a map of the tumultuous torture dancers withstand on a daily basis. Working now as a dancing instructor for children, rather than as the dancer she always wanted to be, she decides to visit the adult son she has been estranged from since he was a child. Mario (Emil von Schönfels), raised by his grandmother, is similarly focused on his physical form and the abuse it takes to earn the physique he craves. When Nadja shows up at Mario’s doorstep, it starts a relationship that is as sensitive as it is taboo-shattering.
Watch the exclusive trailer below, with cinematography by Constantin Campean.
Grand Jeté opens in LA on September 20 at Laemmle Royal and will expand before arriving on VOD on October 25.