Following its festival selection for Venice and Toronto, Nicolas Provost's feature debut The Invader has also been invited to the San Sebastián International Film Festival (16-24 September) where it will be shown, together with such films as Palme d'Or winner The Tree of Life, as part of the Zabaltegi Pearls programme. The Invader is to receive its world premiere in Venice, where it is shown in the Horizons programme. San Sebastián is its next European stop.
Provost won’t be alone in Spain: The San Sebastián film festival embraces two other Flemish co-productions: A Cat in Paris, which will be shown in the Velodrome, the largest cinema in the festival, as part of a screening for children, and The Last Passage, a documentary film by Iurre Telleria and Enara Goikoetxea, which premieres at the fest. The Last Passage will compete in the Zinemira section for the Serbitzu Zinemira Award for films that contribute to the development of the Basque film culture and industry.
The Invader is a co-production between Versus Production and Prime Time. A Cat in Paris is a co-production between France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The Flemish co-producer is Annemie Degryse for Lunanime. The Last Passage is a three-way co-production between Belgium, Spain and France. Off World is the Flemish co-producer of the documentary.
In addition to The Invader, Provost’s latest short, Moving Stories, will also be shown in the Horizons programme at the Venice Biennale. This is the second year in a row that Provost’s films have caught the attention of Venice programmers – his short Stardust screened at the festival last year. The Invader stars Issaka Sawadogo (Hotel Swooni), who plays an illegal African immigrant in Brussels. In his search for a better life he gets confronted with our harsh society and slowly becomes a monster: the unavoidable outcome of what our civilisation creates. Alongisde Sawadogo is Italian actress Stefania Rocca (The Talented Mr Ripley).
All the films in this article received support from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF).