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Eastern Promises (VOSTF)
Location
Main screening room
Date
February 21st, 2022
Duration
100 min
Cycle
Cronenberg: Through a Distorting Mirror

David Cronenberg has created a multidimensional universe in which he insistently questions the limits of every facet of the human condition – physical, moral and existential. This program extends from his early days in Montreal, where he made exploitation flicks produced by Cinépix (Rabid, Shivers), to Maps to the Stars, a scathing take on the California jet-set lifestyle. A creepy parallel universe emerges through films like The Fly, which catapulted him to mainstream success, and eXistenZ, in which it seems perfectly normal to plug an organic game console into one’s spine. This is inside-out cinema, in which unique beings constantly show us funhouse-mirror reflections of our world. This program includes all of Cronenberg’s features, most of them in 35 mm.

A David Cronenberg of formidable dramatic effectiveness

Eastern Promises
Directed by
David Cronenberg
Language
English with French subtitles
Actors
Viggo Mortensen, Naomie Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Origins
UK, Canada, USA
Year
2007
Duration
100 min
Genre
Drama, crime
Rating
16 Violence
Format
Digital
Synopsis

In London, a midwife investigating the death of a child prostitute uncovers a human trafficking ring run by the Russian mob.

Eastern Promises
Awards

David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infection, technology, and the intertwining of the psychological with the physical. In the first third of his career he explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction films such as Scanners (1981) and Videodrome (1983), although his work has since expanded beyond these genres. Cronenberg's films have polarized critics and audiences alike; he has earned critical acclaim and has sparked controversy for his depictions of gore and violence. The Village Voice called him "the most audacious and challenging narrative director in the English-speaking world". His films have won numerous awards, including, for Crash, the Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, a unique award that is distinct from the Jury Prize as it is not given annually, but only at the request of the official jury, who in this case gave the award "for originality, for daring, and for audacity".

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Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)

Shot in London, with a screenplay by Steven Knight, who wrote Dirty Pretty Things for Stephen Frears, The Promises of Darkness is a gangster story with a familiar feel: an innocent girl thrown into the world of violence, a criminal patriarch confronted with the weakness of his heir. And yet this film is from start to finish a journey into Cronenberg's world, a world where evil and disease merge, where the body is both an organism and a machine - in short, a nightmarish and poetic version of our own real world.
Thomas Sotinel
Le Monde, 2007
About Eastern Promises
Full cast
About David Cronenberg
Filmography | director
Filmography | actor
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Exploring David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises
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