Last week saw filming kick off in Spain on The Possessed, which is the third feature film by Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker Ena Sendijarević after Take Me Somewhere Nice (the winner of the Special Jury Award in the IFFR and selected in Cannes’ ACID line-up that same year) and Sweet Dreams (awarded the Leopard for Best Performance in Locarno, screened in Toronto’s Centrepiece programme and chosen as the Netherlands’ Oscars candidate). The project also spent time in the Les Arcs Film Festival’s Co-Production Village and IFFR’s CineMart.

The cast of this French-language film features Ariane Labed (crowned Best Actress in Venice for Attenberg, appearing this year in A Girl’s Story and next year in Le royaume des aveugles), Suzy Bemba (at her best in Homecoming and A Second Life), Khalil Gharbia (revealed by way of Peter von Kant and acclaimed in The Lost Boys and Little Algérie) and Ji-Min Park (nominated for the Lumières’ Acting Revelation Award thanks to Return to Seoul as well as for the Best Supporting Actor César for The Little Sister). 

Written by the director, the screenplay catapults us into 17th-century Europe where two women fleeing widespread witch hunts create a refuge on the edge of the world, until a man becomes their unwilling captive and sparks a dangerous love triangle. Centuries later, a modern film crew resurrects their story. But as desire, suspicion and control take over the shoot, the past begins to haunt the present.

The Possessed is produced by Layla Meijman and Maarten van der Ven for Dutch outfit Studio Ruba in co-production with Eklips (the director’s company), VPRO (Martien Vlietman) and Spanish firm Distinto Films (Miriam Porté and Gerard Marginedas). The film boasts Bosnia’s SCCA/pro.ba as associate producers and has received support from the Netherlands Film Fund, the Netherlands Production Incentive, the CoBO Fund, the ICEC (Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals), the Spanish tax rebate initiative, Creative Europe MEDIA and the Uniqa See Future Foundation. The shoot will run until the end of October in Spain (in the Barcelona, Teruel and Bardenas Reales regions) with Douwe Hennink (Alpha.) serving as director of photography. The score will be composed by Spaniard Raül Refree (La bola negra, One Year, One Night and the series La Mesías).