A pair of international cinema’s greatest directors have confirmed their next features. First up: while Jia Zhangke is at Cannes to premiere his new, 32-minute short Torino Shadow, he’s unveiled his next feature, following the culminating Caught by the Tides.
He’ll next direct Mamma Dunhuang, which begins production this winter, Variety reports. The film “tells the story of a mother who has spent most of her life in Dunhuang, a historic city in western China. With the help of artificial intelligence, she embarks on a journey that takes her from western to eastern China.” It should be no surprise that Mamma Dunhuang will be led by Zhao Tao, who’s joined by her Ash Is Purest White co-star Liao Fan. Backed by MK2 and Jia’s production company Xstream Pictures, we imagine a debut at Cannes next year.
We also have confirmation that Claire Denis is finally moving forward with her long-planned cannibal crime drama The Soap Maker. Variety reports the English-language film—which Denis is once again writing with Andrew Litvack after collaborating on High Life, Stars at Noon, and last year’s still-undistributed The Fence––takes inspiration from the true story of Leonarda Cianciulli, an Italian serial killer in the 1930s and ’40s who murdered three women in the town of Correggio and “disposed of their bodies with chemicals—using what was left to make soaps, candles, cookies and cakes that she shared with people in her community.”
Lastly, following his commercial and critical success Send Help earlier this year, the wait for Sam Raimi’s return to genre filmmaking thankfully won’t be long. Deadline reports he’ll next direct Magic, based on William Goldman’s psychological-thriller novel that was previously adapted in 1978 by Richard Attenborough with Anthony Hopkins starring. Written by Send Help duo Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, the book follows a ventriloquist who becomes controlled by his malicious puppet as a new romance sparks.
As we await more details on the projects, below one can see the first look at Jia’s new short, which was commissioned by Turin’s Museo Nazionale del Cinema.
