He picked up an Academy Award this year for his short film Skin, but before that, Guy Nattiv premiered his feature-length film of the same name (which is or isn’t related to the short, depending who you ask) at Toronto International Film Festival last fall. Starring Jamie Bell, Danielle Macdonald, Vera Farmiga, and Bill Camp, the story of a white supremacist dealing with the shame of his actioins was picked up by A24 for a release this summer and now the first trailer has landed.
Jared Mobarak said in our TIFF review, “Bryon ‘Babs’ Widner (Jamie Bell) hears the buzz of a faulty electrical connection, triggering a transition to an operating table and screams as the tattoos covering most of his body start being removed. It’s a soundscape that’ll have you squirming in your seat, the close-up shots of scar tissue replacing ink as physical a transformation as the act is metaphorical. Because the art adorning his face, neck, and torso isn’t some elaborate supernatural fantasy with family memorials—it’s a map to the blackest center of his soul. Babs is a white supremacist and these “patches” define his rage and vitriol. They mark him as property of his Viking captain (Bill Camp’s Fred), a man who saved his life before promptly stealing it by turning him into a monster.”
See the trailer below.
After a difficult childhood drives him into the grasps of a white supremacist gang, Bryon (Jamie Bell) tries to escape to a new life, all the while questioning whether he’s capable of undoing — and repenting for — the evil he’s done.
Skin opens on July 26, followed a DirecTV release on June 27.