02/09/2011

Hailed by its director as the last film of his career, Béla Tarr’s mesmerising and apocalyptic The Turin Horse [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Béla Tarr
film profile] has been selected to represent Hungary in the nomination race for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, to be awarded on February 26 of next year, after the final five nominees are creamed off on January 24.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the latest Berlin International Film Festival, the film (co-scripted by Tarr and László Krasznahorkai) will have its North American premiere at Toronto in the Masters section on September 15 and its US premiere at the New York Film Festival.

Born in 1955, Tarr has made nine big-screen narrative features, including the extraordinary Damnation, Satan's Tango and Werckmeister Harmonies. He appeared in the Cannes competition in 2007 with The Man from London [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Produced by Hungarian company T.T.Filmmuhely (Gábor Téni and Tarr), The Turin Horse was co-produced by France’s MPM Film (Marie-Pierre Macia and Juliette Lepoutre), Switzerland’s Vega Film (Ruth Waldburger), Germany’s Zero Fiction Film (Martin Hagemann) and America’s Work Work Work. The film also received backing from Eurimages, the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg fund and the Motion Picture Foundation of Hungary, the National Cultural Fund (NKA) of Hungary and the Hungarian Culture Ministry.

International sales are managed by German company Films Boutique which has already sealed deals with numerous territories including France (where it will be released on November 30 through Sophie Dulac Distribution), the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea and the US.

(Translated from French)