(Grave) by Julia Ducournau Cannes 2016 - Critics' Week PRESS WRAP CONTENTS

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RAW (Grave) by Julia Ducournau Cannes 2016 - Critics' Week PRESS WRAP www.wolf-con.com CONTENTS

SELECTED QUOTES p. 3

TRADE REVIEWS p. 5

REVIEWS English language p. 12 Other languages p. 29

TRADE / SALES COVERAGE p. 41

FEATURES, INTERVIEWS p. 44

SELECTED AWARDS MENTIONS p. 54

MENTIONS p. 61

PHOTO BREAKS p. 75

SELECTED TWEETS p. 78

INTERVIEWS COMPLETED p. 84

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 2 www.wolf-con.com SELECTED QUOTES

"Suspiria" meets "Ginger Snaps" in a muscular yet elegant campus cannibal horror (...) A deliciously fevered stew of nightmare fuel that hangs together with a breezily confident sense of superior craft (...) The film’s most exciting element remains its writer-director (...) She has original ideas to spare and the capacity to judiciously magpie from existing work, without tipping over into slavish homage. Catherine Bray, VARIETY

A cleverly written, impressively made and incredibly gory tale of one young woman's awakening to the pleasures of the flesh (...) The assured storytelling and direction, including some of the goriest makeup effects this side of Rob Zombie, turn Raw into the kind of crossover film that takes the horror genre into another domain (...) It's rare to see such confidence in a first feature, yet Ducournau seems to know where she's going at all times, keeping the narrative lean and mean while utilizing an array of stylistic techniques (...) Performances from relative newcomers Marillier and Rumpf are captivating and imposingly physical. Jordan Mintzer, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Ducournau’s control of her material is masterful. The script is at once fiercely original and replete with a rich awareness of the genre, smoothly referencing films from Carrie toGinger Snaps and The Craft. Marillier is excellent, playing Justine with a subtlety and assurance that grounds the film, even at its most extreme (...) Ducournau’s intelligent exploration of femininity gives depth to the film’s visceral, bloody celebration of the body and its appetites. Chloe Roddick, Sight & Sound

Extraordinarily powerful right up to the last second of the film, which draw(s) at times on the imagery of The Shining, on the brutality of Lord of the Flies, and even more so on the thematic abundance of a Dario Argento on amphetamines. What’s certain, is that this brilliant film by Ducournau, which never ceases to be artistic whilst shaking the viewer to their very core, is not to be missed. A true revelation. Bénédicte Prot, CINEUROPA

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 3 www.wolf-con.com SELECTED QUOTES (cont'd)

Certainly, coming-of-age films that use genre semantics are not uncommon, but Raw takes this to another level, in fact questioning the use of the semantic while finding its central power and horror. As an allegory of the discovery of identity, shifting sexuality, the sexual power of women, and the first steps into adulthood, it's a unique and rare film, that will hopefully (and deservedly) find an audience beyond genre film fans. Schelagh Rowan-Legg, Twitchfilm

The bloodlust may grab all the headlines, but this fright night favourite in the making has plenty to sink your teeth into. Ed Frankl, Little White Lies

Ducourneau, a first-time writer-director, shows surprisingly sharp command and, more importantly, restraint given the subject matter. Although the film is rooted in arthouse film territory, and is particularly inspired by the films of David Cronenberg and David Lynch, “Raw” turns out to be its own wild animal. It has rightly earned the buzz that has surrounded the picture, and Ducourneau’s visual and narrative and uncompromising vision is one to watch. Jordan Ruimy, The Playlist

Strikingly original and teeming with talented performers, Raw carries a distinct air of being ‘this year’s It Follows’, another horror that left the Semaine with huge praise. If all goes as it should, Raw has the potential to replicate that picture’s runaway, sleeper success. Douglas J. Greenwood, Frowning

Seasoned with several directorial Giallo-notes (especially in the red-lit rave scenes) (...) a surprisingly coherent and effective mix of atmospheric coming-of-age drama, black humored horror comedy and a big feminist FUCK YOU! (...) a thrilling theatrical tour de force. Christoph Petersen, Filmstarts.de (Germany)

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 4 TRADE REVIEWS

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 5 POSITIVE

"Suspiria" meets "Ginger Snaps" in a muscular yet elegant campus cannibal horror from bright new talent Julia Ducournau. (Page 1 of 2)

May 14, 2016 Catherine Bray

Hannibal Lecter may have selected appropriate wine matches for his meat, but the cannibalism on display in French freshman writer-director Julia Ducournau’s succulent “Raw” is more opportunistic — the equivalent, say, of being able to handily throw together a meal from whoever is lying around. Premiering in Cannes Critics’ Week — where jurors will have had to sit up and take note, if not reach for the barf bag, “Raw” is a deliciously fevered stew of nightmare fuel that hangs together with a breezily confident sense of superior craft. Genre-led distribs will be slavering for a taste, while crossover to a slightly more mainstream crowd may be possible, provided they have strong stomachs.

The central narrative in “Raw” opens with an amuse-bouche of a scene, functioning as something of a tease for the banquet to come. Strict vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) orders plain mashed potato in a canteen, but when she chows down, she’s disconcerted to find a chunk of sausage in her mash. Her parents are even more outraged, determined to preserve her herbivorous purity. It’s not really a spoiler to reveal that her imminent ascent up the food chain will involve more adventurous hors d’oeuvres.

The vast majority of the action takes place over Justine’s first week at the veterinary college that is her parents’ alma mater, and also where her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) is already studying. This location is key to what follows: Like the dance academy in Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” (or the school in 2014’s Critics’ Week triumph “The Tribe”), the college appears to be a placeless, hermetically sealed environment permeated with heightened emotion; a kind of twisted dream-logic dominates and permits events to get suitably out of hand.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 6 POSITIVE

"Suspiria" meets "Ginger Snaps" in a muscular yet elegant campus cannibal horror from bright new talent Julia Ducournau. (Page 2 of 2)

Marillier initially does a superb job of projecting the ingenue. Doe-eyed, chin up, and a natural valedictorian type, she’s ready to throw herself into her studies. Her bewilderment throughout disorienting compulsory mass hazing rituals (including a group version of the crucial pig’s blood scene from “Carrie”) is palpable: At this point audiences will fear for her safety. They will come to learn that she can take care of herself, as Marillier traces a beautifully modulated arc into more feral territory, whereby her very face shape seems to subtly change, becoming more pointed, her fashionably heavy eyebrows hawkish rather than neglected, her bearing predatory. Her name, suggesting De Sade’s corrupted heroine Justine, is not an accident.

In a kind of devilish performance duet, she’s ably matched by a punky live-wire turn from Rumpf, who channels an unholy blend of Béatrice Dalle in “Betty Blue” and Fairuza Balk’s signature 1990s role in “The Craft.” Their sororal dynamic is important, but make no mistake: It’s not always a benign bond. As in sisterly werewolf flick “Ginger Snaps,” female sexuality and sibling rivalry are very much to the fore and drenched in gore.

Speaking of gore, kudos are due to the makeup, effects and prosthetics teams. Often so realistic that they are hard to look at, scenes that viewers of a sensitive nature may find disturbing see lacerated extremities, bite marks and gaping wounds perfectly walk the line between the visceral fun of practical effects and overt attention-grabbing. The effects are simply here to be believed.

Still, the film’s most exciting element remains its writer-director. It’s not that Ducournau’s first feature is totally without flaws — any road bumps are mainly narrative and structural in nature — but that the authorial voice that emerges is so instantly complete and confident. She has original ideas to spare and the capacity to judiciously magpie from existing work, without tipping over into slavish homage.

The film’s soundscape may be familiar to fans of U.K. helmer Ben Wheatley, as his regular composer Jim Williams is responsible for the score. Williams essays a similar approach to that taken in Wheatley’s killer road-trip comedy “Sightseers,” with folksy lighter numbers giving way to heavier, more psychedelic freak-out tracks as the characters degenerate into madness. It’s a tactic that works very well, particularly in tandem with the more expected but still well-curated diegetic music blasting out of the students’ sound systems.

“Raw” is realized to a high standard that should break it out beyond specialist distributors and exhibitors, and genre fests that can get in there before release should book it and watch audiences delight in its stylish sense of body horror. Only a handful of foreign-language films without marquee names cross over to cult success in English-speaking territories each year. This deserves to be one of the handful, and will be aided by its genre: Good horror doesn’t need established stars. Remake rights may well prove part of a “Raw” deal, though there’s a spell to the film that could be broken by attempting to cast it a second time. http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/raw-review-1201774875/

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Julia Ducournau’s flesh-eating French thriller premiered in the Cannes Critics' Week. (Page 1 of 2)

5/14/2016 by Jordan Mintzer The Bottom Line: Pass the steak tartare

Everyone but vegetarians will feast their eyes on Raw (Grave), a cleverly written, impressive made and incredibly gory tale of one young woman's awakening to the pleasures of the flesh — in all senses of the term. Marking the feature debut of French director Julia Ducournau, who leads a terrific young cast into a maelstrom of blood, guts and unfettered sexual awakening, this Cannes Critics' Week selection should become a hot potato (or is that a meatball?) at the market while propelling its talented creator into the spotlight.

Picture Cannibal Holocaust as an emotionally driven coming-of-age movie set within a Gallic veterinarian college, and you'll get an idea of what Ducournau (who also wrote the script) has come up with here. But while such concepts are often easier to imagine than to make, the assured storytelling and direction, including some of the goriest makeup effects this side of Rob Zombie, turn Raw into the kind of crossover film that takes the horror genre into another domain.

Following in the footsteps of her parents (Joanna Preiss, Laurent Lucas) and older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), the shy, bright-eyed Justine (Garance Marillier) shows up for her first year of vet school at a place that looks more like a set piece for The Hunger Games than an actual medical institution. Indeed, before she can even unpack her bags and get acquainted with her thuggish gay roommate (Rabah Nait Oufella), Justine is forced into a vicious hazing process by the older students, who ridicule and insult the freshmen while forcing them to party hearty on the first night..

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 8 POSITIVE

Julia Ducournau’s flesh-eating French thriller premiered in the Cannes Critics' Week. (Page 2 of 2)

In the middle of the drunken bacchanal, Justine reunites with Alexia, a fiery brunette who only half helps her younger sister to learn the ropes — which include getting bathed in animal blood and eating raw liver upon request (perhaps Leonardo DiCaprio should enroll there). The problem is that, like the rest of her family, Justine is a devout vegetarian, so making it out of freshman hell will mean she has to start doing the impossible — or rather the inedible — and become a carnivore herself.

The catch, of course, is that Justine likes it. In fact, she likes it so much that her appetite for uncooked meat begins to take hold of the young woman — who, we eventually learn, is also a virgin — in some highly unsavory ways, driving her to commit acts of increasing savagery that will cause the film's ketchup-count to reach exponential numbers.

There are more surprises to be found in Ducournau's well-paced and perceptive screenplay, which pays homage to classics like Carrie and Night of the Living Dead as it transforms Justine's unquenched sexual urges into an appetite for flesh, whether animal or human. But the real interest of Raw is how the director handles the sticky relationship between Justine and her elder sis — a relationship complicated by a major plot twist in the second act that gives new meaning to the name Scissor Sisters.

It's rare to see such confidence in a first feature, yet Ducournau seems to know where she's going at all times, keeping the narrative lean and mean while utilizing an array of stylistic techniques — slow-motion, sequence shots and tons of onscreen prosthetics — that never let up until the witty, and inevitably grisly, final scene. Previous foreign movies, including Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day and Jorge Michel Grau's We Are What We Are, have attempted similar feats by combining B-grade genre tropes like cannibalism with more upscale filmmaking, though Raw both does that and adds a welcome layer of Hollywood-style polish straight out of Craven or Carpenter.

Performances from relative newcomers Marillier and Rumpf are captivating and imposingly physical, especially during what may be the most painful sequence of feminine hygiene education ever shot, as well as a sisterly catfight of a rare and disturbing brutality. Tech credits are top-notch throughout a sharply edited 98 minutes, with much kudos due to French FX maestro Olivier Afonso (Inside), who makes all the gore look so realistic you can practically taste it.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/raw-grave-cannes-review-894039

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'Raw': Cannes Review (Page 1 of 2)

May 14th, 2016 Jonathan Romney

Dir: Julia Ducornau. France-Belgium. 2016. 98 mins

Cannibalism – it shouldn’t happen to a vet. Rawproves a bang-on title for the previously-namedGrave, the inventively grisly (or gristly) genre debut by French up-and-comer Julia Ducornau. That’s because fresh meat, of various kinds, is at the centre of this femme-horror cannibal coming-of-ager. But it’s also apt due to the young heroine’s own affecting gaucheness and the authentic red-blooded freshness of this stylistically rich, super-macabre piece from a French director who made her mark with the 2011 short Junior.

That film also starred up-and-coming actress Garance Marillier, whose ferociously uninhibited performance here is one of Raw’s several aces. The theme itself might not seem brand new – cannibalism with an arty twist has been the focus of recent films such as remade Mexican feature We Are What We Are – but feminist and youth culture angles, plus distinctive visual flamboyance, give Raw a fresh flavour. Genre buffs and fests will gobble it up, and this prime cut should be the plat du jour on cult theatrical menus worldwide.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 10 'Raw': Cannes Review (Page 2 of 2)

The film begins with a slyly presented whammy, a slow burn leading up to a mystery occurrence that doesn’t get explained till much later. Then we meet Justine (Marillier), a shy young woman being driven by her parents (Joanna Preiss, Laurent Lucas) to her first year at veterinary college. Life there seems to be a permanent hazing ritual, mixing brutally coercive stunts – ‘rookies’ being forced to serve the whims of older students - with orgiastic party nights. Luckily, Justine has two friends there: her new roommate, gay muscle boy Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella) and her older punky sister Alex (Ella Rumpf). A confirmed vegetarian, Justine balks at being made to eat rabbit kidney for social acceptance, but does so anyway, with drastic effects on her skin. And things get weirder still as she breaks the taboo barrier big time, following what can only be described as a bizarre depilation accident.

Raw’s feminist take on body horror is unfailingly confrontational, and it also passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours. Currently urgent themes of young women’s body image and the violence of peer pressure are interwoven to smartly provocative effect. As female body horror, this would make a terrific double bill with 2002’sDans Ma Peau, the more artily glacial flesh-eater pic from Marina De Van (in which Lucas also appeared).

Once Justine has decisively given up on her veggie ethic she also embarks on a sexual apprenticeship, while getting some drastic tutoring on college survival from big sis. Her new appetites are predictably hazardous to potential lovers, however, and one outré scene involving blue and yellow body paint ends up with a little red mixed in too.

The film’s power stems partly from the disconnect between Justine’s feral inner fury and her ostensible vulnerability – there’s a significant streak of Carrie in here from the start. The young cast, from the newbie leads to an army of go-for-it extras, are terrific, and Marillier is something else – ferociously expressive in a performance that’s no-holds-barred on every front.

Ruben Impens’s photography, featuring a string of eerily spacious wide shots, makes the most of the imposingly odd brutalist architecture of the vets’ college and the make-up, by Laura Ozier and SFX specialist Olivier Afonso, is at times quite hair-raisingly juicy. All in all, a classily savorous fright tartare.

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/raw-cannes-review/5103900.article

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 11 REVIEWS (English language)

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 12 POSITIVE

Raw – first look review

USA May 17th, 2016 Alison Willmore

The heroine of French filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s gross, great debut Raw, another halfway-to-the-arthouse horror flick over in Cannes’ Critics’ Week program, is also going through a terrifying time in her life. Garance Marillier (who looks like a cross between Saoirse Ronan and Maisie Williams) plays Justine, a precocious teen starting her freshman year at the prestigious veterinary school her parents went to and her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) is already attending. In one of what turns out to be a long train of hazing rituals, Justine, a lifelong vegetarian, is forced to eat a raw rabbit kidney, and it awakens a hunger in her she’s never had before.

Turns out, it’s a short trip from baby’s first shawarma to human flesh. Raw’s cannibal awakening is paired wittily with a very dark college self-discovery journey in which Justine, a teacher’s pet, experiments with drinking and sex as she navigates her sometimes supportive and sometimes competitive relationship with the aggressive Alexia, who treats her with the sneer of someone who’s already been through hell and has no intention of easing the way for someone else, not even her own flesh and blood. Raw is filled with surreally Cronenberg-esque peeks at vet training within the brutalist walls of the campus building, from dog dissections to a horse running on a treadmill. It’s an effective accompaniment to the vivid gore, which was enough to send about two dozen people in my screening heading for the door not long into the movie. It’s no booing, but it’s just as good. https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonwillmore/the-kristen-stewart-movie-that-got-booed-at-cannes?utm_ term=.nfBR2LKO4#.orkRML4jp

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USA May 27th, 2016 Jordan Ruimy

Cannes Review: Julia Ducournau’s Arthouse Horror ‘Raw’ Recalls ‘Suspiria,’ ‘Carrie’ & David Lynch

We’ve all known vegetarians who have decided to change their diet out of concern for animal rights or the environment or based upon religious beliefs. And to those who forgo meat, it’s usually a deeply held conviction. Those same people might not be very kind to 32 year-old writer-directorJulia Ducournau‘s “Raw.” In it we meet bright-eyed Justine (Garance Marillier) who follows in the footsteps of both her parents and older sister (Ella Rumpf) by attending her first year at veterinary school. In the, pun intended, bitingly comic opening scene, Justine orders plain mashed potato, but as she chows the food down she finds a piece of sausage in her mash. Her parents are outraged; they want the shy and wide-eyed Justine to preserve her plant-based heritage. It’s a tongue-in-cheek start for the story that finds for protagonist only at the beginning of her carnivorous ways.

Taking place during Justine’s first week at school, the film is placed in a surreal atmosphere, as cinematographer Ruben Impens’s photography uses the brutalist architecture of the college with eerily spacious wide shots reminiscent of “Suspiria” meshed with the production design of “Carrie” (with”Raw” eerily paying tribute to the pigs blood scene from Brian De Palma‘s film).

And indeed some of the hazing rituals that Justine needs to go through are harrowing enough to evoke the tactics that were used on Sissy Spacek’s high school senior more than 40 years ago. At one point she is disgustingly forced to eat bloody, raw liver. It’s a wincingly preposterous scene that nevertheless has a lasting effect on the viewer and the way he or she might view the eventual victims in the film. At this point we’re in the same universe as “Carrie,” an obvious point of reference for Ducournau, and just like that movie, we shouldn’t fear too much for our heroine’s safety. In fact, we deeply fear her and what she’s capable of.

To say that Justine’s first taste of blood does something to her psyche would be an understatement. After all the cruel hazing, one would conclude that the only way she can survive the first semester of this vet school would be to indulge in the nastier activities she’s experienced. That is, of course, what happens to Justine, whose newly found love for uncooked meat reaches a pinnacle of delectability too juicy to reveal in this review, but be forewarned that her new found love of animal meats goes to greater depths of the food chain and eventually mixes in some unwarranted victims. And its the committed performance by Marillier as Justine that carries you through every over-the-top, hard-to-believe twist — she makes it seem real.

The film, which premiered as part of Critics’ Week at Cannes, justly won the FIPRESCI prize. Ducourneau, a first-time writer-director, shows surprisingly sharp command and, more importantly, restraint given the subject matter. Although the film is rooted in arthouse film territory, and is particularly inspired by the films of David Cronenberg and David Lynch, “Raw” turns out to be its own wild animal. It has rightly earned the buzz that has surrounded the picture, and Ducourneau’s visual and narrative and uncompromising vision is one to watch. [A-] http://theplaylist.net/cannes-review-julia-ducournaus-arthouse-horror-raw-recalls-suspiria-carrie-david- lynch-20160527/

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UK May 21th, 2016 Chloe Roddick RAW - FIRST LOOK. Fresh feminine (and sororal) horror from French first feature director Julia Ducournau, set in the blank spaces of a veterinary college. (Page 1 of 2)

French writer-director Julia Ducournau’s extraordinary first feature is a heady, blood-soaked examination of femininity, sexual awakening and the sisterly bond.

Following in her strict-vegetarian parents’ footsteps, 16-year-old Justine (Garance Marillier) starts at a veterinary college, where her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) is also studying. Unceremoniously dumped in the school’s car park, Justine is left to fend for herself.

It soon becomes clear that this is not a welcoming place. A series of vicious hazing ceremonies ensue: the students are awoken in the middle of the night and made to crawl semi-naked to a party; they are bathed in blood and paint; and Justine is forced to eat a raw rabbit’s liver, despite her protests of devout vegetarianism. Justine’s reaction is extreme and physical – she develops an angry, red rash all over her body, then comes the gnawing desire for meat and, along with it, an aggressive sexual appetite.

Almost entirely adult-free, the school offers no authority figures to protect the intelligent, naïve newbie. One teacher tells a nervous Justine that he doesn’t like the smart ones, while a chain-smoking nurse reacts to her full-body rash without concern.

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RAW - FIRST LOOK. Fresh feminine (and sororal) horror from French first feature director Julia Ducournau, set in the blank spaces of a veterinary college. (Page 2 of 2)

Justine’s only emotional links are with Alexia, who wants little to do with her sister at first, and her gay roommate Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella), who is non-judgmental to a fault. This, then, is not the typical, oppressive high-school setting, but rather a kind of bleak, emotionless non-space that, crucially, offers Justine room for self-expression, largely unfettered by expectation or constraints. It is only after she is filmed, blind-drunk and hungry for flesh in a morgue, that the other students turn on her, a moment that culminates in a bloody confrontation between the two sisters.

Central is the relationship between Justine and Alexia, which both drives the narrative and is key to the director’s exploration of what it means to be a girl. The older sister’s lessons aren’t always orthodox – she lends Justine a short dress for a ‘slut’ party, teaches her how to pee standing up and, finally, how to satisfy her increasingly worrying appetite for meat. In one scene, dismayed to learn that her sister doesn’t shave, Alexia takes it upon herself to impart some expertise. It’s an important moment: not only is it one of the most extreme bikini-waxing scenes ever shot, buoyed by some sickeningly good special effects, but it also explicitly juxtaposes Justine’s refusal to conform to body stereotypes with a violent, cannibalistic outburst.

Though Raw is gruesome, with gore- and sound effects so realistic they are sometimes difficult to stomach, Ducournau’s intelligent exploration of femininity gives depth to the film’s visceral, bloody celebration of the body and its appetites. http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/raw-first-look

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UK May 15th, 2016 Douglas J. Greenwood Cannes 2016: Raw (Review)

A car drives quickly down a country road. A figure approaches from the opposite side. The camera looks back – she has disappeared. Not a moment later, the figure leaps from the roadside, sending the car and its driver crashing into a tree. The damage is fatal.

We revisit this scenario later in Raw, the buzz-laden, feature-length debut of the French/Belgian film’s helmer Julia Ducournau. She’s a director who Semaine de la Critique curator Charles Tesson described as the epitome of the festival’s ’50+5′ edition, as she visited five years ago with her short debut Junior and returned to the same strand with her first feature-length. But to call Raw the epitome of anything is to do it a serious injustice. A deformed and caustic hazing movie, it takes the stereotypes of college education, hikes the tension up to one million and then splatters them like pig guts across the auditorium floor.

The film lets us follow in the blood-stained footsteps of Justine, a teenage girl who arrives at her first week of veterinary school a die-hard vegetarian. Having stemmed from a family of them (including her fellow vet-school-going sister), she’s forced to turn her back to her views when she faces her first-week initiation, chewing a rabbit’s kidney served raw with a quick swig of vodka. It sets off a crimson red string of events that Justine can hardly control, forcing her cravings to turn towards raw uncooked flesh of any kind.

Almost from the onset, we lick sweat from the skin of the narcotised college kids in the scintillating underground party scenes. Lathered in nuclear shades of yellow and green paint, our protagonist dodges fornicating, full on party people; a carnivorous sort. It’s head-thumpingly loud and borderline grotesque, but the definition of ‘grotesqueness’ is soon to switch. What starts out looking a little ‘Spring Breakers’ winds up resembling an intelligent, semi-subdued version of Mitchell Lichtenstein’s ‘Teeth’.

Ducournau refuses to let the camera shy away from Raw’s most visceral, stomach-churning moments. Whether we’re watching a girl’s bikini wax go agonisingly pear shaped, or the skin peel from a human finger like a flimsy layer of cellophane between an eager set of teeth, everything is on show from start to agonising finish. The girl forced to confront these daring and disgusting scenarios is Garance Marelliel, a young French actress (and previous Ducournau collaborator) who too makes her feature debut in the film. There’s no time for her to dip her toes in. Instead, she’s thrown into the murky and mysterious deep end, faced with full frontal nudity, sex scenes and a lethal set of incisors that could tear the face off of the entire cast. With her poised, slightly smize-ready demeanour, she feels like a Continental version of ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ star Bel Powley; a girl also destined for great things.

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EUROPE / INTL May 15th, 2016 - Bénédicte Prot Raw: A bloody great film (Page 1 of 2) Cannes 2016: This truly well-made and completely ‘mutant’ debut feature by Julia Ducournau is a gory piece that is completely original, thrilling and, in a word, impressive

It’s for films like this that film festivals exist! The film starts with a head-on shock. You’ve been warned, it’s this sort of experience, both bracing and exhilarating, that awaits viewers of Franco-Belgian film Raw [+] by Julia Ducournau, her debut feature film which is being shown in Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival and which she herself defines as ‘a mutant’. The film plays out around the character (and actress, the ever young and frailGarance Marillier) of Justine, who was also at the centre of Ducournau’s short film Junior(which was shown in Critics’ Week five years ago and awarded the Petit Rail d'or) and the world she knows well: school, and all the things that go with it: horsing around with classmates, without restraint but with the outspokenness and cheek of today’s youth (and the biting music that goes with it, especially the track ‘Plus pute que toutes les putes’ by Orties, to which Justine, her good-girl persona completely possessed and teeth bared, dances like a lunatic in front of the mirror in a pretty entertaining scene); her changing body, with her concerns but her new appetites as well, without mentioning her disconcerting voracity.

Need we say more, as it’s also the element of surprise that keeps us blinking in horror on the edge of our seats for most of this film as we split our sides laughing, astounded by its audacity, which is completely above suspicion. What lies in store for this shy young girl from a family of vegetarian vets, when her parents drop her off at the school they themselves trained at for her first year, pink suitcase in hand, is a transformation – which starts with her shedding her skin like a snake, penetrating her to her core.

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Raw: A bloody great film (Page 2 of 2)

The setting lends itself to the story with its everyday monstrousness. It’s a place that’s reminiscent of somewhere you would study medicine, but is strengthened here by the animal nature that seems to take hold of all these budding young vets the minute they start the aggressively trashy rites of initiation imposed on them by their elders, also creating a physical proximity that crudely sexualises their young shameless bodies – admittedly, nudity and bodily fluids of any kind aren’t things that scare young people preparing to dissect sheep and burrow their arms into enormous cows. Here, there’s no room for the faint-hearted, and if Alex (Ella Rumpf), Justine’s older sister, allowed herself to be covered in pig’s blood and munched down on all the animal organs she was presented with when she was a fresher, who is her little sister to break with tradition and refuse this strange first communion with raw meat that she will come out of irreversibly changed – like a dog that’s had a taste of human blood.

The way young Justine blossoms once she gets a taste of young flesh brings us a sequence of scenes each more brilliant than the last, heightened by the intensity of the growing bond between Justine and her sister, and between the former and her attractive gay classmate Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella, a regular at Cannes since The Class [+], a film that was awarded the Palme d’or and nominated for an Oscar), with his muscles bulging under his smooth, often bare skin. Nevertheless, in this string of scenes that are extraordinarily powerful right up to the last second of the film, which draw at times on the imagery of The Shining, on the brutality of Lord of the Flies, and even more so on the thematic abundance of a Dario Argento on amphetamines, special mention should perhaps be made of the bikini wax scene. What’s certain, is that this brilliant film by Ducournau (being sold by Wild Bunch), which never ceases to be artistic whilst shaking the viewer to their very core, is not to be missed. A true revelation. http://www.cineuropa.org/nw.aspx?t=newsdetail&l=en&did=309431

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 19 POSITIVE

CANNES 2016 – THE FIFTH REPORT

USA May 24th, 2016 John Wildman

Julia Ducournau’s RAW follows Justine, a brilliant young French student, as she enters a prestigious veterinary school, following both her parents and joining her sister, Alexia, who is an upper classman. She quickly experiences the school’s merciless hazing rituals, during which the vegetarian Justine is forced – with her sister’s insistence – to eat raw meat for the first time. The consequences of that decision go far beyond an upset stomach as Justine’s body starts going through changes and she begins exhibiting cravings she never had before that cause her to behave in ways that quickly escalate from confusing to frightening and dangerous as her true self emerges.

RAW delivers an unsettling coming-of-age tale with one of the most formidable, complicated, and ultimately threatening sister combos in a genre film since GINGER SNAPS. While Justine’s cravings for raw flesh escalate quickly, the moment where she reaches a point of no return is not simply shocking, it is also emotionally powerful – and that can be said for the film as a whole. The desire for flesh – whether to eat it or sexually – while graphic and bloody, doesn’t simply descend into blood splattering set pieces or default to lazy cannibal or vampire film tropes. Instead, there is a steady hand keeping us on Justine’s journey and relationship with Alexia. There is also a thrilling and dynamic style at play, including one sequence shot in a way that recalls cinematic seduction of the Milk Bar scene from CLOCKWORK ORANGE. All told, and much like the relationship between the two sisters, RAW is disturbing and maybe even upsetting for some, but it is not a film that can be dismissed or forgotten easily – it will stay with you, whether you like it or not. http://festworks.com/2016/05/24/cannes-2016-the-fifth-report/

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Canada / USA May 15th, 2016 - Schelagh Rowan-Legg Cannes 2016 Review: RAW, A Terrifying and Gripping Evisceration (Page 1 of 2)

It's hard to maintain one's identity when university begins; or perhaps more to the point, find your identity under enormous pressure to do well in school, adapt to life without constant parental supervision, not to mentions the pressures of the first sexual encounters. In her first feature film, writer and directer Julia Ducournau tears down to the bone, the messiness of young adulthood, in a film that owes as much to the exploration of female sexuality in the films of Catherine Breillat, as it does to the earlier body horror films of David Cronenberg. Raw is made by someone who understands deeply the audacity and vulnerability of youth, and finds its expression with such viscerality and raw (pun not intended) power.

Justine (Garance Marillier), a smart, tomboyish girl, joins her sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) at veterinary school, in the footsteps of their parents. The family are also strict vegetarians; but during a freshman hazing ritual, Justine is forced to eat raw meat. Suddenly, she's got a rash and some cravings that go beyond what you might find at the butcher shop, and Alexia is hiding something that hints at a disturbing family secret.

Marillier is mesmerizing as Justine, a girl who (at first) fully embraces both her future as a vet, and her identity as a vegetarian. She is not shy, but has no desire for any conformity, prefering the comfort of her own skin. In opposition, Alexia (an equally great performance by Rumpf), is the wild sister, who lacks Justine's natural intelligence, and so makes up for it in wild abandon. Justine's initial reluctance to participate in the

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 21 Cannes 2016 Review: RAW, A Terrifying and Gripping Evisceration (Page 2 of 2) hazing rituals is squashed by Alexia, who knows that eventually, Justine will discover her true nature, and it's Alexia's job to teach her how to live with it (or even enjoy it). They are at odds in personality, but bonded by their shared family heritage, and that bond leads to both affection and blows.

It is rare that such a strong authorial voice is found in a first feature, but Ducournau goes in head first, taking a harsh look at how society treats the young, how it treats young women, and how young women treat themselves. The hazing rituals are conducted by both men and women of the senior classes, and yet evoke the most terrifying stories of such events perpetrated by male collegiates, including bodily humiliation, drug use, sex, all of which will be ready for audiovisual consumption in the age of phone cameras and easy internet access. Everyone is complicit. In her navigation of this world, and her strange cravings which are almost unstoppable, Justine finds herself not only at odds with her own moral code, but her lack of experience leaves her ill-equiped to fight off control of her own body from those forces and people that seek to put her in her place.

And the realization of these cravings is something to behold. Horror film fans might think themselves (as I have) desensitized to violence and gore. But the effects team have done such as remarkable job, with torn flesh, bites, and blood, that I frequently found myself shielding my eyes (if only I could have shielded my ears as well, as the sounds effects team deserves equal credit. Duournau has set up an aesthetic of European low-budget art-house film, a sense of verisimilitude, to further drive home the allegory, and this extends to the effects and sound, with a score by Jim Williams that evokes both the generic French countryside, and the ongoing discord of Justine's mental and emotional state.

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Raw – first look review UK May 17th, 2016 - Ed Frankl

Julia Ducournau’s French campus cannibal horror serves up plenty of food for thought.

The Gallic appetite for raw meat takes on a new meaning in Julia Ducournau’s unabashedly gory debut, a French campus cannibal horror which had audiences racing for the exit in its Critics’ Week Cannes screening. But for those who can stomach its gross-out horror, it’s a delectably wild and modern feminist fable.

Justine (a breakout Garance Marillier) is a first-year veterinary student, continuing a family tradition by enrolling at the same establishment attended by her straight-laced parents and spunky older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf). She’s also a militant vegetarian but, thanks to ritualistic “hazings”, she is forced to eat raw meat for the first time. The loss of her veg-inity arouses something deep within her, setting in motion a deadly and stomach-churning descent into more exotic dishes.

A scene featuring scissors and a severed finger is just one of the many unsettling sights in this bold body horror from writer/director Ducournal. Set in the dank confines of a campus away from the city, a lot of credit must go to the props department for the highly stylised but realistic early sequences that eventually give way to a more psychological terror. Frequently neon-lit and scored to strains of pulsing electro (by Ben Wheatley regular Jim Williams), Raw has more than a dash of Nicolas Winding Refn about it.

Ducournal elicits two stand-out performances from her young leads, with Marillier and Rumpf demonstrating the kind of emotional shorthand that makes them totally convincing as on-screen sisters. Marillier is especially committed to the director’s demented vision, and comparisons to Sissy Spacek’s blood-soaked role in Carrie are bang on the money.

There’s also a touch of Sam Raimi black comedy and the matter-of-fact grisliness of French genre titles like TV’s The Returned. And there’s a timely commentary on female sexuality that shows a filmmaker willing to break the mould – Justine, for one thing, is a feminist who makes pre-emptive strikes on prospective male aggressors, with bloody consequences. The bloodlust may grab all the headlines, but this fright night favourite in the making has plenty to sink your teeth into. http://lwlies.com/festivals/raw-first-look-review/

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INTNL May 15th, 2016 Marc Van De Klashorst Cannes 2016 – Raw (Julia Ducournau) - (Page 1 of 2)

Sometimes it’s just better to be a vegetarian.

Raw, playing in Critics’ Week, opens with an eerie scene: a girl walks along a quiet country road. As an oncoming car reaches her, she steps onto the road. The car veers, hits her, then crashes into a tree. The girl gets back on her feet, the music swells ominously as she walks towards the car, and then…

Cut to Justine, the protagonist of Julia Ducournau’s sophomore film Raw. Raised strictly vegetarian by her parents, things are about to take a strong left turn for her when she enrolls in veterinary college, just like her parents and her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who is still a senior there. During a freshman hazing ritual, she is forced to eat a raw rabbit kidney, and soon after she starts noticing behavioral changes in herself. Meat certainly looks better all of a sudden. Any meat…

Raw is a coming-of-age story at its heart. In her first weeks at college, Justine changes from an innocent, reserved girl to a self-confident young woman who isn’t afraid to bite back a little when pushed. That she takes ‘biting back’ quite literally doesn’t change the fact that the film is mainly about this transformation. Played with confidence by Garance Marillier, whose small physique helps her in portraying Justine’s early almost-childlike appearance, she gets feral rather quickly after her first taste of meat, and Marillier manages the change on body language and piercing glances alone in a very physical role.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 24 POSITIVE

INTNL May 15th, 2016 Marc Van De Klashorst Cannes 2016 – Raw (Julia Ducournau) - (Page 2 of 2)

What makes Raw stand out from your average gory horror flick is its morbid, dark humor and its willingness to not shy away from morally ambiguous, to say the least, actions by its protagonist and her friends. About halfway through the film, the audience will realize just exactly what happened in that opening scene, and no matter how sweet and desperate the frail Justine may be, her actions aren’t always justifiable. It gives Raw a sharp edge, and precisely because it wraps this edge in ink-black humor, the film will leave its viewers uneasy when they step back and think about what they are watching. Raw is an amoral tale that dares you to root for a dubious protagonist. Films like these are rare (an example would be Alléluia, in the Quinzaine two years ago, which incidentally also starred Laurent Lucas, Justine’s father here) and should be cherished, because they let us explore our darker side.

On the side, Raw manages to tackle some other themes as well. Its atypical portrayal of Justine’s gay roommate Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella) is refreshing. The practice of hazing, here smartly used as a tool to instill sympathy for Justine in the audience, is effectively criticized. Raw is smarter than it looks at first glance, and Ducournau’s sharp writing keeps the viewer on edge, as she pushes her audience towards Justine every time she threatens to lose our sympathy.

Owing a lot to other directors who do not shy away from a little body gore from time to time (think David Cronenberg, a big influence for Ducournau), the film wears its heart on its bloody sleeve. Shot for a modest budget, the makeup work is as impressive as it is gruesome. DP Ruben Impens (probably best known for his work on Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown) keeps the lighting hard most of the time, providing for deep shades and an eerie, cold look. His work in an early party scene, where the camera is constantly on Justine’s tail as she searches for her sister, is impressive and immersive. The music by Jim Williams (who has worked on several Ben Wheatley films) is effective in conjuring up foreboding dread and raw carnality.

Though the language barrier and its straight genre upbringing will prevent this from breaking out beyond francophone territories, Raw might be a good bet for festivals with more adventurous programming. Places like TIFF or IFFR should take note, as this has all the makings of a breakout hit with their audiences. In the meantime, Ducournau presents herself as an assured directorial talent whose entry in this year’s Critics’ Week is a nice stepping stone. http://icsfilm.org/reviews/cannes-2016-raw-julia-ducournau/

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Australia May 15th, 2016 Simon Foster

While filmmakers and audiences tend to gag at the thought of ‘the other C-word’ onscreen, writer/director Julia Ducournau and her fearless leading lady Garance Marillier launch themselves teeth first into their bloody and occasionally brilliant cannibal horror pic, Raw (aka Grave, to its homeland Euro auds).

Blood ties and the inflamed passion of a woman’s blossoming are central to the French director’s strikingly accomplished first feature, one of the most invigorating debuts in recent memory. A coming-of-age tale conveyed with deftly handled emotional complexity and chilling thematic subtext, Raw is above all else a gut twisting work of classic body horror. On one occasion, your seasoned scribe averted his eyes in anticipation of what was about to unfold; there were a couple of other times when he wished he had.

In almost every frame is teen actress Garance Marillier as Justine, a committed vegetarian(!) who we meet as she is being delivered by her parents (Laurent Lucas, Joana Preis) to veterinary college. From the first night, senior students haze and harass the newbies; Justine is cut no slack by her big sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who so fervently adheres to university tradition she makes Justine eat raw rabbit kidney instead of being shamed before her peers.

Justine’s despair at eating flesh manifests in scaly, itchy skin; in one excrutiating but brilliantly sound- designed sequence, she works her nails deep into the red patches that have formed. Worse is yet to come, however, as the hunger for raw meat becomes an all-consuming need for Justine, her ravenous desires of every kind escalating to predatory proportions.

Such developments would be sufficient for many lesser works, but Ducornau taps a rich vein of sibling rivalry drama and familial intrigue that elevates the stakes and pits Marillier against the ferocity of Ella Rumpf’s Alexia. There are corpulent detours and the odd surreal touch along the way, but nothing derails the foreboding menace and driving dramatic pulse of the story; the denouement, a shocking sequence that plays like a real-world nightmare, and icky coda will induce a goosepimply bout of the cold sweats.

Raw is a film that both embraces and defies cinematic traditions. The sublime camerawork of DOP Ruben Impens (The Broken Circle Breakdown, 2013; The Sky Above Us, 2015) enhances the narrative while also subverting the genre; coming-of-age loveliness can turn to animalistic rage from one frame to the next. Other major assets include co-star Rabah Nait Oufella as coarse but caring gay roommate Adrien; the dizzying music score by Jim Williams (Sightseers, 2012; Kill List, 2011); and, of course, the precise and often sickening work done by the make-up effects units led by Olivier Alfonso and Laura Ozier. Julia Ducournau’s command of the production and assured guidance in the pursuit of her harrowing, unforgettable vision signifies the director as a new major talent. http://screen-space.squarespace.com/reviews/2016/5/16/raw.html

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 26 USA May 17th, 2016 David Hudson

REVIEWS ROUNDUP (Page 1 of 2)

We begin with Ed Frankl at Little White Lies: “The Gallic appetite for raw meat takes on a new meaning in Julia Ducournau’s unabashedly gory [feature] debut, a French campus cannibal horror which had audiences racing for the exit in its Critics’ Week Cannes screening. But for those who can stomach its gross-out horror, it’s a delectably wild and modern feminist fable.”

For Jonathan Romney, writing for Screen, Raw is a “stylistically rich, super-macabre piece from a French director who made her mark with the 2011 short Junior. That film also starred up-and- coming actress Garance Marillier, whose ferociously uninhibited performance here is one of Raw’s several aces. The theme itself might not seem brand new—cannibalism with an arty twist has been the focus of recent films such as remade Mexican feature We Are What We Are—but feminist and youth culture angles, plus distinctive visual flamboyance, give Raw a fresh flavor.”

“Picture Cannibal Holocaust as an emotionally driven coming-of-age movie set within a Gallic veterinarian college, and you’ll get an idea of what Ducournau (who also wrote the script) has come up with here,” suggests Jordan Mintzer in the Hollywood Reporter. “But while such concepts are often easier to imagine than to make, the assured storytelling and direction, including some of the goriest makeup effects this side of Rob Zombie, turn Raw into the kind of crossover film that takes the horror genre into another domain.”

Marillier plays Justine, a vegetarian, and as Catherine Bray notes in Variety, the “vast majority of the action takes place over Justine’s first week at the veterinary college that is her parents’ alma mater, and also where her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) is already studying. This location is key to what follows: Like the dance academy in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (or the school in 2014’s Critics’ Week triumph The Tribe), the college appears to be a placeless, hermetically sealed environment permeated with heightened emotion; a kind of twisted dream-logic dominates and permits events to get suitably out of hand.” Marillier is “ably matched by a punky live-wire turn from Rumpf, who channels an unholy blend of Béatrice Dalle in Betty Blue and Fairuza Balk’s signature 1990s role in The Craft. Their sororal dynamic is important, but make no mistake: It’s not always a benign bond. As in sisterly werewolf flick Ginger Snaps, female sexuality and sibling rivalry are very much to the fore and drenched in gore.”

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 27 USA May 17th, 2016 David Hudson

REVIEWS ROUNDUP (Page 2 of 2)

“Horror film fans might think themselves (as I have) desensitized to violence and gore,” writes Shelagh Rowan-Legg at Twitch. “But the effects team have done such as remarkable job, with torn flesh, bites, and blood, that I frequently found myself shielding my eyes; if only I could have shielded my ears as well, as the sounds effects team deserves equal credit. Duournau has set up an aesthetic of European low-budget art-house film, a sense of verisimilitude, to further drive home the allegory, and this extends to the effects and sound, with a score by Jim Williams that evokes both the generic French countryside, and the ongoing discord of Justine’s mental and emotional state.”

“The way young Justine blossoms once she gets a taste of young flesh brings us a sequence of scenes each more brilliant than the last,” writes Bénédicte Prot at Cineuropa. “A true revelation.”

Laura Berger‘s got a few questions for Ducournau at Women and Hollywood.

Update, 5/20: From Buzzfeed‘s Alison Willmore: “Raw’s cannibal awakening is paired wittily with a very dark college self-discovery journey in which Justine, a teacher’s pet, experiments with drinking and sex as she navigates her sometimes supportive and sometimes competitive relationship with the aggressive Alexia, who treats her with the sneer of someone who’s already been through hell and has no intention of easing the way for someone else, not even her own flesh and blood. Raw is filled with surreally Cronenberg-esque peeks at vet training within the brutalist walls of the campus building, from dog dissections to a horse running on a treadmill.”

Update, 5/21: Bénédicte Prot talks with Ducournau for Cineuropa.

Update, 5/23: “Ducournau’s control of her material is masterful,” writes Chloe Roddick for Sight & Sound. “The script is at once fiercely original and replete with a rich awareness of the genre, smoothly referencing films from Carrie to Ginger Snaps and The Craft. Marillier is excellent, playing Justine with a subtlety and assurance that grounds the film, even at its most extreme.”

Update, 5/28: Ducourneau “shows surprisingly sharp command and, more importantly, restraint given the subject matter,” writes Jordan Ruimy at the Playlist. “Although the film is rooted in arthouse film territory, and is particularly inspired by the films of David Cronenberg and David Lynch, Raw turns out to be its own wild animal.” https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-cannes-2016-julia-ducournaus-raw

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 28 REVIEWS (Other languages)

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 29 POSITIVE

Germany May 19th, 2016 Christoph Petersen Kritik der FILMSTARTS.de-Redaktion Raw

Nach diesem Film wird wohl niemand mehr versuchen, einen Fleischverächter zum Schnitzelgenuss zu verführen! Als die angehende Veterinärin Justine (Garance Marillier) ein einzelnes Fleischbällchen ausspuckt, das sich in ihren Kartoffelbrei verirrt hat, erkundigt sich ihre Mutter (Joana Preiss) sofort, ob ihre Tochter auch wirklich nicht versehentlich hineingebissen hat. Selbst wenn die ganze Familie aus überzeugten Vegetariern besteht (für sie ist die Vergewaltigung eines Affen genauso schlimm wie die einer Frau – das wird tatsächlich im Film diskutiert), wirkt die besorgte Nachfrage der Mutter zunächst völlig überzogen. Doch das ist sie keineswegs, wie der Zuschauer von Julia Ducournaus Horror-Komödie „Raw“ spätestens erfährt, wenn ein missglücktes Bikini-Waxing in eine ganz neue Interpretation des Begriffs Fingerfood mündet: Selten haben sich im Kino mehr Zuschauer gleichzeitig die Hände vors Gesicht gehalten, aber vor den nachhaltig verstörenden Knabber- und Schmatzgeräuschen gibt es auch so kein Entrinnen.

Dabei beginnt alles vergleichsweise „normal“: Die bisher so behütete Justine muss sich nicht nur plötzlich allein an der Uni zurechtfinden, sondern auch noch irgendwie die Initiationswoche überstehen, bei der die neuen Studenten von den höheren Jahrgängen gleich zu Beginn mit Tierblut übergossen werden („Carrie“ lässt grüßen). Aber als die Frischlinge dann auch noch eine Kaninchenniere verspeisen müssen, nimmt der plötzlich Gar-nicht-mehr-so-vegetarische-Horror seinen immer absurder werdenden Lauf: Gewürzt mit etlichen inszenatorischen Giallo-Anklängen (vor allem bei den rot ausgeleuchteten Rave-Szenen) präsentiert Langfilmdebütantin Ducournau einen überraschend stimmigen und effektiven Mix aus atmosphärischem Coming-of-Age-Drama, schwarzhumoriger Horror-Comedy und einem großen feministischen FUCK YOU! Die junge Hauptdarstellerin Garance Marillier legt auf dem Weg von der introvertierten Streberin zur wie ein tollwütiger Hund nach der Hand eines Toten schnappenden Partyattraktion eine mitreißende schauspielerische Tour de Force hin, während der abgründige Schlussgag die Männer endgültig auf ihre Rolle an der Seite als Pausensnack ihrer Frauen verweist. Bon Appétit!

Fazit: Ein Must-See für Fans schwarzhumoriger Horror-Kost (nur Vegetarier sollten diesmal lieber draußen bleiben). http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/244414/kritik.html

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Germany May 23th, 2016 Jenny Jecke Raw - Ein neuer Lieblings-Kannibalenfilm & andere Cannes-Perlen

Mit Raw legte die französische Regisseurin Julia Ducournauihr Spielfilmdebüt vor, das eine Handvoll Dario Argento, eine Prise Carrie - Des Satans jüngste Tochterund einen aus Versehen abgeschnittenen Finger aus Dreizehn durch den Fleischwolf dreht. Für ein Debüt äußerst souverän in Ton und Stil, verfolgt Raw die junge Justine (Garance Marillier) in den ersten Wochen ihres veterinärmedizinischen Studiums. Die ehrgeizige Vegetarierin muss als Initiationsritus der Studenten Tier-Innereien verspeisen und kommt auf den Geschmack. Als ihr dank eines effektiven Plädoyers gegen Brazilian Waxing ein Menschenfinger in die Hände fällt, knabbert sie drauf los.

Ducourneaus entschlackter Coming-of-Age-Film zieht den Zuschauer hinab in die eskalierende Party- Welt eines Studentenwohnheims, in dem für Justine Beer-Pong vom lockenden Fleisch der Kommilitonen ersetzt wird. Nachts taucht sie ein in blutrote Korridore, in denen nichtsahnende Studenten nur fleischliche Liebe, nicht biologische Selbsterhaltung suchen. Ein Sound-Gewitter der Marke Suspiria und die wilde Soeur fatale Alexia (Ella Rumpf) begleiten sie auf der Entdeckungstour ihrer Triebe, deren Intensität und Unwiderstehlichkeit beeindruckend in Szene gesetzt werden. Zwischen den großen stilistischen Vorbildern arbeitet Julia Ducournau in ihrem Erstling Raw eine unverkennbare Autorenstimme heraus, von der wir sicher noch einiges hören werden. http://www.moviepilot.de/news/raw-euer-neuer-lieblings-kannibalenfilm-andere-cannes-perlen-172149#

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Germany May 16th, 2016 Tim Casper Boehme Eine Schwäche für Menschenfleisch

Wenn das Begehren heiß läuft, ist guter Rat teuer. Besonders, wenn man eine Schwäche für Menschenfleisch hat. Das muss die junge Heldin von Julia Ducournaus Film „Grave“ (Raw) lernen, sobald sie ihr Elternhaus verlässt, um (wie alle in ihrer Familie) Veterinärmedizin zu studieren. Justine (Garance Marillier) heißt dabei keinesfalls zufällig genauso wie die Titelheldin des SM-Klassikers „Justine“ des Marquis de Sade. Ähnlich wie bei de Sade werden in Julia Ducournaus erstem Spielfilm fürs Kino Körpergrenzen jenseits des Schmerzes überschritten. Und körperlich geht es allemal zu, wenn die als strenge Vegetarierin erzogene Justine bei einem Initiationsritual an der Uni zum ersten Mal rohes Fleisch kostet und kurz darauf ungeahnte Bedürfnisse in sich verspürt.

Ducournau rückt ihren Figuren in diesem körperbetonten Film mit hochbeweglicher Kamera auf den Leib, kriecht zu Justine unter die Bettdecke, dieweil die anderen Justines Zähne zu spüren bekommen. Die Reihe „Semaine de la Critique“ hat damit einen französischen Horrorfilm im Geiste David Cronenbergs beigesteuert.

Körper gelten darin als transformationsfähige Objekte; aber weniger des reinen Schocks wegen, selbst wenn die recht expliziten Akte von Kannibalismus an die eigenen Eingeweide gehen. Ducournau stellt vielmehr die Frage, was man mit sich anfängt, wenn man merkt, dass man einfach anders ist. Wie sagt doch der verständnisvolle Vater am Ende zu seiner Tochter: „Du wirst bestimmt eine Lösung für dich finden.“ Gut, dass es draußen die Sonne, das Meer und weitgehend zivilisierte Menschen gibt, in deren Gesellschaft man die Wirkung dieser in mehrfacher Hinsicht eindringlichen Darbietung etwas verdauen kann. Kleine Überraschungen auf der Promenade der Croisette eingeschlossen: So konnte man unter den Passanten eine rätselhafte Gestalt bewundern, die sich von nahe als ein Kostüm aus Maren Ades Film „Toni Erdmann“ herausstellte. http://www.taz.de/!5305492/

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Germany My 15th, 2016 Hannah Pilarczyk Blutrünstige Cannes-Filme: Kannibalen in Zivil

Wenn man Hunger hat, warum nicht den Finger der Schwester essen? In Cannes häufen sich Filme, in denen abgehackt, ausgeweidet und ausgesaugt wird.

Gut, dass man im Festivalstress so selten zum Essen kommt. Man könnte es angesichts der Filme auch kaum bei sich behalten. Abgehackte Füße, angenagte Oberschenkel, ausgesaugte Pulsadern: Um dem menschlichen Wesen nahe zu kommen, gehen die Filme in Cannes 2016 buchstäblich unter die Haut und lassen dabei das Blut so richtig spritzen.

Bei der Premiere ihres Films "Grave" (Schlimm) in der Nebenreihe "Semaine de la critique" war Julia Ducournau so aufgeregt, dass sie den Tränen nahe war. Bei der Inszenierung ihres Debütfilms kann die junge Französin aber kaum mit der Wimper gezuckt haben. Weil im Kartoffelbrei von Justine (Garance Marillier) ein Fleischstückchen steckt, beschwert sich ihre Mutter lauthals in der Autobahnraststätte. Die gesamte Familie lebt schließlich vegetarisch, Mutter, Vater, die jüngere Tochter Justine und die ältere Tochter Alexia (Ella Rumpf) auch. Letztere ist schon Studentin an der Veterinärfakultät, an der bereits die Eltern studierten. Nun soll auch Justine als letzte in der Familie Tierärztin werden, als Ausnahmeschülerin hat sie sich schon mit 16 Jahren für die Uni qualifiziert.

Die erste Nacht im Studentenwohnheim wird jedoch schlaflos: Die älteren Studierenden sammeln die Erstsemester ein und unterziehen sie eine ganze Woche lang gnadenloser Initiationsriten. Unter größtem Protest würgt Justine eine Kaninchenleber herunter, wenig später zeigt ihr magerer Körper bereits eine heftige allergische Reaktion. Und trotzdem scheint sie auf den Geschmack gekommen zu sein. In der Kantine greift sie plötzlich zum Hacksteak, von ihrem Mitbewohner lässt sie sich zum besten Schawarma- Laden der Stadt fahren - und als ihre Schwester bei einem Unfall zu Hause einen Finger verliert, vernascht Justine auch den.

Der Hunger, der in Justine geweckt ist, ist in doppeltem Sinne nach menschlichen Fleisch: Mit dem Kannibalismus entdeckt sie auch ihre Sexualität, und fortan gerät jede ihrer Kontaktaufnahmen zu Mitstudierenden zu einer Jagd, die entweder im Bett oder in einer Blutlache enden kann. Grandios gelingen Ducournau die Bilder von Justines fleischlicher Erweckung, nicht zuletzt auch dank des herausragenden Make-ups und den grausam gut gelungenen Prothesen. Auch wenn die dramaturgischen Linien in "Grave" oft noch ins Leere zielen: Mit diesem Film hat sich Julia Ducournau auf Anhieb einen Namen gemacht als jemand, der sowohl Horror als auch Coming-of-Age-Geschichte kann. http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/cannes-filme-mit-viel-blut-grave-caini-hunde-und-the- transfiguration-a-1092497.html

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 33 MIXED

Germany May 18th, 2016 Michael Kienzi

Cannes 2016 / Semaine de la Critique: Coming of Veggie, oder: Sind Vegetarier die besseren Kannibalen? In ihrem Debütfilm erzählt Julia Ducournau von einem bedrohlichen sexuellen Erwachen. (Page 1 of 2)

Das Grauen fängt mit einer rohen Hasenniere an, die Justine (Garance Marillier) im Rahmen ihres universitären Initiationsritus verspeisen soll. Als Frischling an einem Institut für Tiermedizin muss sich die verschlossene Musterschülerin allerlei Demütigungen gefallen lassen, bei denen sie herumgeschubst, angeschrien oder mit Farbe überschüttet wird. Man kennt die Bilder von Universitäten aus aller Welt. Wer einer Studentenverbindung beitreten will, muss beweisen, was er aushalten kann, zeigen, dass er unbedingt dazugehören will und auch würdig ist, nicht als Unantastbarer auf dem Campus zu enden. Nachdem die von ihren Bobo-Eltern streng vegetarisch erzogene Justine bei einer dieser Aufgaben schließlich das glibberige Stück Fleisch herunterwürgt, macht sich bei ihr eine Veränderung in der Persönlichkeit bemerkbar, deren gravierendste Auswirkung ein unstillbarer Hunger nach Menschenfleich ist.

Julia Ducournaus bemerkenswerter Debütfilm Rawerzählt von einem schmerzhaften Reifeprozess und einem bedrohlichen erotischen Erwachen. Im Grunde handelt es sich dabei um eine klassische Coming-of- Age-Geschichte, die aber mit den Mitteln des Horrorkinos erzählt wird. In den letzten Jahren gab es immer wieder unabhängige Filmemacher, die die politischen, sozialen und sexuellen Subtexte des Genres in den Vordegrund rückten. David Robert Mitchells It Follows (2014) ist durch seinen Fokus auf die zerrütteten Seelenwelten von Teenagern der engste Verwandte von Ducournaus Film. Im Gegensatz zu ihm leidet Raw streckenweise noch an den Kinderkrankheiten eines Erstlingsfilms; an der Ambition, möglichst viele Ideen hineinzupacken und daran, einfach die Musik (Jim Williams) laut aufzudrehen, wenn sich diese nicht mehr elegant in die Handlung einflechten lassen. Doch Ducournaus ungebremste Leidenschaft, die sich in jedem ihrer Bilder findet, und ihr böser, aber nie schlaumeierisch zynischer Humor, lassen das den Zuschauer gerne vergessen.

Kannibalismus ist in Raw etwas Buchstäbliches; ein Verlangen, das der Film in vielen Szenen mit Body- Horror-Exzessen nach außen trägt, bei denen man manchmal gerne den Blick von der Leinwand abwenden möchte. Er hat jedoch auch etwas Metaphorisches, steht für eine unterdrückte und unkontrollierbare Sexualität, die zunehmend Besitz von Justine ergreift. Bald betrinkt sich das Mädchen hemmungslos auf Studentenpartys, spürt sich immer stärker zu ihrem schwulen Mitbewohner Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) hingezogen und verliert, allen moralischen Zweifeln zum Trotz, ihre Beißhemmung. Ducournau zeichnet eine Entwicklung von einem Extrem des Außenseiterdaseins zum nächsten nach. Von der unscheinbaren Streberin wird Justine schnell zum unberechenbaren bad girl, mit dem niemand mehr etwas zu tun haben will.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 34 MIXED

Germany May 18th, 2016 Michael Kienzi

Eine Zeit lang, kann man sich nicht ganz sicher sein, worauf die Regisseurin eigentlich hinauswill. Haben wir es hier etwa mit dem Manifest einer Hardcore-Vegetarierin zu tun, oder gibt es vielleicht sogar lustfeindliche Untertöne im Film, die den Sex als gefährliche, mit Kannibalismus vergleichbare Versuchung gleichsetzen? Raw setzt an den richtigen Stellen witzige Brechungen ein und begegnet seiner Hauptfigur ohnehin mehr mit Faszination als mit Abscheu. Justines wahnhaftes Taumeln lässt Raw uns durch seine bildgewaltige Inszenierung am eigenen Leib spüren. Doch dass wir uns von Justine nie lösen, hat auch noch einen anderen Grund. Umgeben von sadistischen Aufnahmeritualen und überheblichen Lehrern wirken ihre Beutezüge plötzlich gar nicht mehr so scheußlich. Ihr Kannibalismus erscheint vielmehr als ein betont weiblicher Gegenentwurf. Während bei den Studentenverbindungen das Patriarchat sein hässliches Haupt erhebt (sogar die Studentinnen skandieren bei den Marschliedern, wie steil ihre Schwänze nach oben ragen), steht Justines Fleischeslust für eine matriarchale Form der Gewalt, die stärker von Gefühlen geleitet ist und mitunter an eine Essstörung denken lässt: Der Wunsch nach der totalen Kontrolle über den eigenen Körper endet in einem Desaster. http://www.critic.de/film/grave-9782/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 35 POSITIVE

Belgium May 15th, 2016 Nicolas Gilson

Critique : Grave

Sensationnel premier long-métrage que GRAVE au fil duquel Julia Ducournau nous confronte à une troublante allégorie à travers des pulsions anthropophagiques. Imposant un style esthétique rock’n'roll, jamais gratuit ni tape à l’oeil, elle revisite singulièrement le film de genre qui devient le terrain d’une expérimentation où elle développe conjointement un récit initiatique et une critique pertinente de la réalité dans laquelle elle inscrit le film. Une claque.

Justine (Garance Marillier) est végétarienne, comme ses parents et sa soeur Alexia (Ella Rumpf). Lorsqu’elle intègre le campus universitaire où elle de faire l’école de vétérinaire, elle est happée par le bizutage. Un passage d’autant plus incontournable si elle ne veut pas être rejetée par ses condisciples qu’elle est surdouée – la pire race pour certains professeurs. Forcée à manger de la viande crue pour la toute première fois de sa vie, Justine entre en mutation…

Attisant d’entrée de jeu notre attention, Julia Ducournau ouvre le film sur un prélude des plus percutant. Une route paisible de campagne devient en effet, en quelques plans, un théâtre des plus inquiétant. La réalisatrice impressionne nos sens, nous confrontant à l’apparition furtive d’une silhouette qui nous saisit tout autant qu’un immobiliste. Le titre s’inscrit en lettres capitales noires sur un fond vermeil, laissant présager une hypothèse tout à la fois sanguinolente et sanguinaire.

L’action prend place sur une aire d’autoroute, alors que Julia et ses parents déjeunent. La présence d’un morceau de viande dans l’assiette de la jeune fille aura le don d’irriter sa mère. L’heure est à la séparation, peu sociable Justine doit retrouver sa soeur qui manque au rendez-vous. La famille modèle présente déjà ses failles à travers quelques tensions entre « Alex » et leur mère. En somme une famille ordinaire…

Tandis que le bizutage prend place, Justine fait face à l’émulation d’une génération face à laquelle elle est en décalage. Confrontée à une hyper-sexualisation des corps, elle bascule littéralement dans la réalité. Plus jeune que les autres et la tête enfuie dans ses bouquins, elle est recroquevillée dans un corps encore enfantin. L’ivresse se veut plurielle à mesure qu’elle affronte les activités imposées, découvre les gestes supposés féminins ou se lie d’amitié avec son colocataire homosexuel – une fille ou un gay, c’est pareil.

En plein vertige, Justine est propulsée dans le vide lorsqu’on la contraint à manger un bout de viande. Développant une réaction allergique, elle entre en pleine mutation. Au fil de celle-ci, Julia Ducournau ancre une métaphore subjugante dont la lecture se veut autant féministe qu’universelle questionnant le corps, la sexualité, les relations sociales (qu’elles soient familiales, amicales ou amoureuses) mais aussi la nature même de l’homme. L’appétit de Justine pour la viande, soit-il insatiable, transcende celui qu’elle se découvre pour la vie. Mais répondre à ses pulsions, à sa nature, lui demande de transgresser les normes – autant de codes habilement remis en question.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 36 POSITIVE

CANADA May 16th, 2016 Philippe Gajan

Cannes 2016: Grave Julia Ducournau

Un film gore féministe ultra décomplexé... Et donc forcément jouissif Et quand on dit décomplexé (dixit son producteur), c'est peu de le dire ! Par rapport au cinéma (l'une de ses actrices disait avoir vu le film pour la première fois le matin même et avoir réalisé qu'elle jouait dans une oeuvre d'art! ), par rapport au genre dont elle tord les codes les uns après les autres, par rapport au fémininisme dont elle joue des clichés qu'elle fait voler en éclat, par rapport à son spectateur qu'elle entraîne dans une comédie d'horreur survitaminée avec toute l'énergie et le sérieux que nécessite cet everest du divertissement intelligent. Bref, pour un premier long métrage, une vraie réussite.

On reprend. Justine, fille de vétérinaires, brillante, sérieuse, part rejoindre sa soeur aînée dans la plus prestigieuse des écoles … vétérinaires. Ah oui, elle est végétarienne et le premier jour, cette chère soeur l'oblige a ingurgiter un bout de rein de lapin. Car le premier jour, c'est le bizutage, institution qui en prend pour son grade entre parenthèse. Et ce n'est pas un hasard : en installant son film dans un univers aussi connoté, et pas particulièrement célèbre pour sa subtilité , la réalisatrice peut s'amuser à la fois à se vautrer dans les clichés, les codes, les pasages obligés tout en plaçant ses pions. Et c'est un peu le programme du film, ce qui le rend différent et donc intéressant : un jeu de pistes entre blagues débiles et sa propre originalité qui dévoile pierre par pierre un nouvel ordre mondial au sein duquel la femme trône au somment pourvu que les apparences soient sauves (délicieuse ironie…). Sexualité, rapport au corps, animalité, filiation, atavisme, normalité, théorie du genre, féminisme et féminité, rarement tous ces sujets auront été affrontés de façon aussi directe, sabre au clair, avec autant de détermination. http://revue24images.com/blogues-article-detail/2919

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 37 POSITIVE

Argentina May 19th,2016 Gerard Casau

Afín a las maneras del reciente terror francófono, la ópera prima de Julia Ducournau presenta las fases de traumático autoconocimiento de Justine, una joven vegetariana que acaba de entrar en la escuela de Veterinaria, y que se ve obligada a comer carne por primera vez para no quedar marginada de la comunidad de estudiantes y de las cafres inocentadas que los estudiantes veteranos (entre ellos, la hermana mayor de la protagonista) gastan a los novatos. Al probar la carne, algo se despierta en Justine, causándole erupciones en la piel, vómitos espectaculares y un hambre carnívora cada vez más incontrolable.

Ducournau no pretende ocultar que su horror físico y transformador es heredero directo del primer Cronenberg. Pero donde el canadiense planteaba una estética magra, que resaltaba lo descarnado de sus propuestas, la directora francesa opta por un tratamiento estético algo más suntuoso, perceptible en las secuencias de discoteca con figuración abultada, y en esos planos en que la luz ilumina exactamente las zonas del cuerpo que es necesario mostrar.

Dejando más o menos velada la naturaleza exacta de la antropofagia que mueve a la protagonista, Ducourneau explota su mitología con más gusto por los momentos de impacto que lógica interna, pero se trata de un pecado mínimo en un debut robusto, consecuente con la alienada perspectiva de su personaje principal, y punteado por mínimos gags negruzcos y por decisiones musicales agradablemente sorprendentes, como la de anunciar el crepúsculo de la historia mediante el clásico de Nada Ma che freddo fa. http://www.otroscines.com/nota-10959-criticas-de-la-semana-de-la-critica

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 38 POSITIVE

Spain May 16th,2016 Joan Colansky

Hubo un tiempo donde el cine de terror se hizo un lugar en la historia del cine. Nadie puede negar que las películas de zombies y vampiros de George A. Romero y sus coetáneos le dieron un significado. Hicieron una crítica de la guerra fría violenta, desde la carne, cruda. O Brian de Palma y su Carrie que hablaban de la sexualidad en la adolescencia.

En cambio, en las salas de hoy parece difícil encontrar algo similar y que no se limite en caer en los mismos esquemas o en repetir los patrones de esos grandes. Aunque bien es cierto que en los festivales especializados en este género siempre aparecen sorpresas.

Este año ha sido en Cannes, festival no muy dado a este tipo de películas, pero que este año ha programado desde Train to Busan (asegurándose el punto) hasta la sorpresa de Grave en la Semaine de la Critique. Y si bien parecía que la primera, con un director tan sólido en la materia, iba a ser la sensación, las tornas cambiaron. Grave es sin duda la sensación del cine de terror de este año. Punto que se anota la Semaine de la Critique. Esta película franco-belga no descubre el potencial de nuestros vecinos, quien haya visto Teeth sabe que así es.

Tan descarnada (literalmente) como esa, Grave ha causado la huida en masa de las salas de buena parte del público, pero quien se ha mantenido en pie la ha disfrutado como un niño. ¿Y qué es sino el cine más que un disfrute y un goce, un arte que nos lleva a salir con un gran sensación de la sala?

Julia Ducournau ha logrado que aquellos valientes que se han mantenido firmes en sus butacas salgan de la sala con una gran sonrisa de oreja a oreja, habiendo disfrutado con la brutalidad de sus escenas, con la sangre ingerida, como un adolescente tras una fiesta universitaria.

¿Qué de que trata Grave? La sinopsis dice que de una vegetariana por tradición familiar y firme en sus convicciones que deja su morada materna para ir a estudiar veterinaria a la misma facultad que su hermana. Y con esta idea ya vale para entrar a la sala y dejarse sorprender.

No, no se trata de una película de vegetarianos reivindicativos hasta el extremo, es la lucha desgarrada de afrontar la facultad, la presión de los compañeros por ser una más, el acoso al diferente y la rabia contenida que genera al que la padece. ¿Dramón? ¿Para qué? Mejor girar hacia el terror más exagerado, a las situaciones fuera de la imaginación del espectador, al radicalismo formal.

Ahí, al margen de las convenciones es donde Grave se hacen grandes, abriendo nuevas puertas hacia lo inesperado de la trama, a lo bizarro es donde Julia Ducournau se emparenta y habla de tu a tu a los maestros del género y ocupa un gran lugar. También, sin duda, en la memoria de los espectadores. http://filmsandmoreculture.blogspot.de/2016/05/festival-cannes-grave-julia-ducournau.html

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 39 POSITIVE

Italy May 18th, 2016 Lorenzo del Porto

Un horror cannibalico e visionario, Grave, per palati fini e stomaci forti. Nella famiglia della sedicenne Justine sono tutti veterinari e vegetariani convinti. Iscritta alla facoltà di veterinaria, dove studia anche la sorella maggiore Alexia, la timida ragazzina si trova catapultata in un universo caotico e crudele, dove le matricole sono vessate e umiliate dagli studenti più grandi. Tra i riti di iniziazione a cui la povera Justine dovrà sottoporsi per essere accettata dalla tribù c’è anche quello di mangiare fegato di coniglio crudo. Basterà questo assaggio di carne per sconvolgere la psiche e il corpo di Justine, che gradualmente si trasformerà in una predatrice in balia di istinti sessuali e alimentari a dir poco aberranti. Di fronte a questo folgorante esordio, c’è solo da inchinarsi, applaudire e riconoscere che certe perle malsane le sanno confezionare solo i francesi.

Il nostro è un voto “di pancia”(giusto per rimanere in tema), che sorge spontaneo di fronte alla bellezza mutante e selvaggia di questo film, che molti colleghi nostrani a Cannes 2016 hanno snobbato e che in sala ha creato un notevole fuggi fuggi nelle scene più truculente (tra cui un’ormai leggendaria e tragicomica depilazione inguinale con esito a sorpresa). Ma più che il gore o il cannibalismo più o meno esplicito, quello che colpisce maggiormente in Grave è il suo essere un inno assoluto ai piaceri della carne. Parrà una contraddizione, ma per la giovane Justine l’emersione della componente carnivora corrisponde a un moto di liberazione sessuale e crescita individuale che non lascia dubbi. Circondata da una tribù di dottorandi idioti e perversi, più per dovere che per reale inclinazione, Justine, prima goffamente e poi con lo scatto del predatore, emergerà trionfante come la regina di una facoltà/savana, dove peraltro le figure adulte sono quasi assenti.

Appassionata dalla trasformazione del corpo, nonché fan dichiarata di David Cronenberg, Julia Ducournau confeziona in Grave quella che potremmo definire come la perfetta alchimia tra l’estetica d’autore e l’onestà di chi il genere horror lo ama veramente, senza doverlo travestire con presunte urgenze socio-politiche. Con una maturità inaspettata, la regista mantiene salde le redini narrative del suo horror corporeo senza sbavature, e ci regala pure un finale agrodolce e beffardo che fa scattare subito l’applauso. Gran parte del merito per la riuscita del film va anche alla strepitosa Garance Marillier nel ruolo principale, e alla svizzera Ella Rumpf che infonde nel personaggio di Alexia una forte carica di erotismo disinibito, che innesca in Justine quel desiderio di emulazione che la porterà alla metamorfosi finale. http://www.nocturno.it/movie/grave/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 40 POSITIVE

Netherlands May 18th,2016 Hugo Emmerzael

Een van mijn persoonlijke favorieten dit festival hadden ze nog niet gezien: Grave van Julia Ducournau. Een film over een vegetarisch muurbloempje dat aan haar eerste jaar van dierengeneeskunde begint. Tijdens de ontgroening moet ze daar voor het eerst vlees eten. Nadat ze het verplichte konijnen levertje heeft verteerd neemt de film een vreemde wending en verandert in een Cronenbergiaans coming-of-age verhaal waarin het personage Justine haar ontluikende seksualiteit omarmt. Wat blijkt? Justine ontdekt dat ze steeds sterkere kannibalistische neigingen krijgt die gepaard gaan met haar seksuele driften. Is ze nu een monster of is ze een normaal meisje met een unieke seksuele voorkeur? Ducournau wil met haar film aantonen dat die twee dingen elkaar niet hoeven uit te sluiten, dat we meer vormen van seksualiteit zouden mogen omarmen in onze samenleving, als die maar niet te schadelijk zijn voor anderen. Het is een belangrijke boodschap die misschien net iets beter door een vrouw verteld kan worden. http://www.filmkrant.nl/nieuws_2016/13851

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 41 TRADE / SALES COVERAGE

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 42 USA/INTL May 23th, 2016 David Ehrlich and Eric Kohn

Memo to Distributors: Buy These 2016 Cannes Film Festival Movies The festival ended Sunday, but these movies still need homes. Here's our plea to change that.

The French-Belgian debut from Julia Ducournau is a surreal, deliriously twisted coming-of-age story that suggests "Heathers" by way of "Dogtooth." The plot only skirts the surface of its strange narrative: A young woman joins her sister at a massive veterinarian school campus, where she's subjected to a series of humiliating hazing rituals and discovers her taste for human flesh.

Wait a minute. Veterinarian schools have campuses with hazing rituals? And...cannibalism? Writer-director Ducournau's memorable first feature takes its off-kilter logic at face value, developing a mesmerizing look at the experience of a young woman waking up to her desires in a world of peculiarities. Alternately beautiful and grotesque, it's bound to please horror fans and cineastes alike. —EK http://www.indiewire.com/buy-2016-cannes-films-dog-eat-dog-one-week-and-a-day-risk-mean-dreams- fiore-the-cinema-travelers-raw-the-death-of-louis-xiv-aquarius-memo-to-distributors-acquisitions

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 43 USA May 20th, 2016 Ali Jaafar Focus Shows Appetite For Critics Week Hit ‘Raw’; Director Julia Ducournau In-Demand Fest Breakout Star- Cannes

EXCLUSIVE– Focus Features is circling Critics Week flesh-eating thriller Raw in a deal that would see it take most of the world, including domestic rights. The deal isn’t closed yet but Focus – as well as other buyers- have been hungrily eyeing the film, which debuted to strong reviews. Raw is the debut feature directorial effort of French filmmaker Julia Ducournau and its premiere in Cannes has very much positioned as her as a major new talent. One buyer likened the buzz around her to that around Tomas Alfredson and Juan Antonio Bayona after the bows of Let The Right One In and The Orphanage respectively: a distinctive, exciting new voice capable of storming the world stage. Deadline understands that Ducournau is currently being courted by all the major talent agencies. That deal could also close any day, such is the interest in the eminently photogenic filmmaker.

Raw tells the story of 16-year-old Justine. Everyone in her family is a veterinarian. And a vegetarian. She’s a brilliant and promising student. When she starts at veterinary school, she enters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. During the first week of hazing rituals, desperate to fit in whatever the cost, she strays from her family principles when she eats raw meat for the first time. Justine will soon face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions when her true self begins to emerge.

Julia DucournauStylishly and effectively mixing horror tropes with a genuinely affecting coming-of-age tale as well as elements of a teen comedy, Raw would be a good get for Focus, which has enjoyed a strong first Cannes under new chairman Peter Kujawski, COO Abhijay Prakash and president Robert Walak. The prestige film division saw strong critical notices for Jeff Nichols’Loving. That film stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple that married in 1958 and found themselves prosecuted in Virginia and sent to prison. The couple fought until the miscegenation law was overturned in 1967 by the Supreme Court in a landmark Civil Rights case. Focus had acquired worldwide rights in a splashy acquisition at the beginning of the Berlin fest in February.

Focus moved similarly quickly at Cannes to acquire key international markets on Andrea Arnold’s competition entry American Honey, starring another fest breakout Sasha Lane and Shia LaBeouf. Focus took UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia for the coming-of-age tale about law-breaking teenagers chasing the American Dream.

A Raw deal would cement the division’s strategy of producing acquiring quality titles with local and international breakout potential. Raw was produced by Jean des Forêts for Petit Film, with Jean-Yvez Roubin, Cassandre Warnauts, Julie Gayet, Nadia Turincev co-producing. Wild Bunch is handling international sales. http://deadline.com/2016/05/focus-raw-worldwide-deal-julia-ducournau-cannes-festival-breakout- agencies-1201760139/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 44 FEATURES & INTERVIEWS

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 45 USA May 9th 2016 Brad Miska

‘Raw’ (‘Grave’) Clip and Images Give Into Primal Urges

Set to premiere this Saturday, May 14th in the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival is the Franco-Belgian co-production Grave, also selling under the title Raw.

In the film, “Everyone in Justine’s family is a vet. And a vegetarian. At 16, she’s a brilliant and promising student. When she starts at veterinary school, she enters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. During the first week of hazing rituals, desperate to fit in whatever the cost, she strays from her family principles when she eats raw meat for the first time. Justine will soon face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions when her true self begins to emerge…”

Julia Ducournau directs Grave, which stars Rabah Naït Oufella, Laurent Lucas, and Bouli Lanners.

Bloody Disgusting has three freshly ground stills from the film to go along with a clip in which we see Justine give into her primal urges. http://bloody-disgusting.com/images/3390242/raw-grave-clip-images-eat-meat/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 46 (Page 1 of 2)

May 20th, 2016 Bénédicte Prot

Interview with Julia Ducournau, the director of Raw, the debut feature that took the audience’s breath away in Critics’ Week

We met with French director Julia Ducournau, the director of Raw [+], the debut feature that took the audience’s breath away in Critics’ Week at the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

Cineuropa: Raw has good continuity with your short film, Junior, and your film for TV,Mange, but this time, you take things to the extreme. What made you make this leap? Julia Ducournau: Actually, since Junior, I’d been working on the metamorphosis of my main character, a primarily physical metamorphosis, but also in her transition to adulthood and femininity. In Raw, I decided to add an ethical dimension to this metamorphosis; I thought it would be interesting to turn morals on their head at some point in the film, whilst retaining the viewer’s empathy. That presented me with an interesting challenge as a screenwriter, because it’s not easy to get the viewer to accept something they all-out reject at first glance. So I thought about what I consider mankind’s three taboos: incest, murder and cannibalism, and I thought the third went well with the spirit of my work on the body, its metamorphosis and its opening up. And that’s how I ended up with something so extreme!

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Interview with Julia Ducournau, the director of Raw, the debut feature that took the audience’s breath away in Critics’ Week

So it’s about your heroine freeing herself from something, but that said, you could ask yourself whether she’s freeing or damning herself… It’s a bit of both. I tried to broach the subject of cannibalism as liberation, or rather something that releases her from the determinism of school and fresher initiations and the family determinism of vegetarianism (determinism on the surface, at least!), or rather the traditions that have been imposed on her all her life: it’s a sort of punk gesture that allows her to get out of this stranglehold. It’s also something that marks her transition to adulthood rather tragically and suddenly determines the person she’ll turn into because right then and there, she has a choice: either kill people to eat, satisfying a primal need, or get herself into an ethical straightjacket and look to the humanity inside.

You chose a setting that lends itself perfectly to Justine’s experience, a veterinary school. How did you take charge of and incorporate this place? To begin with, I thought about setting the action in a school of medicine, but I realised very quickly that in such an environment, she would only have to go down to the morgue to snack on corpses, and suddenly there was no film. Nevertheless, I wanted to stay in the realm of medecine, due to the associated problems with the body and the opening up of the body, as I wanted to film that – inside and out – and I had certain scenes in mind, of dissections for example. So I naturally turned to veterinary school, which clearly and metaphorically conveys the animalistic side of her well, and visually, it threw up some interesting parallels.

Indeed, as extreme as it is, the project has an astonishing coherence to it: in spite of what we see Justine do, the gaze she is subjected to remains discreet and on the delicate side throughout the film. The main challenge was to make the viewer understand her actions, we had to give reason to them that would allow the viewer to identify with the character. The orgasm is one such reason, but even more so, she bites herself so as not to bite anyone else, and because she has morals: she’s someone who would rather hurt herself than the people she loves, meaning she’s not an animal and we can therefore understand her.

The film is rooted in the territory of arthouse film, but it echoes certain big film references that flirt with genre film… It was more about influences – in particular, David Cronenberg’s films, along with those of David Lynch – as I didn’t want to slap anything over the film. I merely tried, when I needed, to reflect scenes that I like on the same subjects to see what road other people have gone down and decide what I wanted to do with them.

http://cineuropa.org/it.aspx?t=interview&l=en&did=309718

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Belgium May 17th, 2016 Nicolas Gilson Interview : Julia Ducournau

Avec GRAVE, Julia Ducournau a saisi la Croisette. Elle signe un premier long- métrage saisissant, une véritable claque qui, à travers la métaphore du cannibalisme, met en question tout comportement « humain ». La réalisatrice voit son film être sélectionné à la Semaine de la Critique, section parallèle du festival de Cannes où elle avait présenté son court-métrage JUNIOR en 2011 dans lequel elle dirigeait déjà Garance Marillier. Rencontre.

Quel élément a été moteur au développement de GRAVE ? - Je me suis donné le challenge de faire un film au cours duquel la morale des spectateurs serait retournée. Il fallait essayer de ne pas perdre le spectateur alors même qu’il voit un personnage auquel il s’est attaché commettre un acte inhumain – qui est toutefois très humain puisque l’anthropophagie, un des trois tabous de l’humanité, fait partie de nous. Je trouvais intéressant de conduire le spectateur à plonger dans sa part d’animal et dans sa part d’ombre. Je pense que toute constitution identitaire et morale ne peut qu’advenir par la reconnaissance de la menace qu’on porte tous en nous au sein d’un système social. Reconnaître que l’on puisse faire du mal Quel élément a été moteur au développement de GRAVE ? - Je me suis donné le challenge de faire un film au cours duquel la morale des spectateurs serait retournée. Il fallait essayer de ne pas perdre le spectateur alors même qu’il voit un personnage auquel il s’est attaché commettre un acte inhumain – qui est toutefois très humain puisque l’anthropophagie, un des trois tabous de l’humanité, fait partie de nous. Je trouvais intéressant de conduire le spectateur à plonger dans sa part d’animal et dans sa part d’ombre. Je pense

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Belgium May 17th, 2016 Nicolas Gilson Interview : Julia Ducournau

que toute constitution identitaire et morale ne peut qu’advenir par la reconnaissance de la menace qu’on porte tous en nous au sein d’un système social. Reconnaître que l’on puisse faire du mal à quelqu’un, c’est à la fois reconnaître sa liberté ultime et sa responsabilité.

Elle met de manière anticipative l’homme et l’animal à égalité lorsqu’elle affirme naïvement que torturer un animal ou un être humain est équivalent. - Au début du film, Justine n’est que projection de ses parents. Elle n’existe pas pas elle-même. Elle est dans un déterminisme qui est celui de tout enfant. Les enfants ne vivent qu’à travers le système moral de leurs parents et ne se vivent pas eux-mêmes comme des êtres indépendants moralement. Quand ils font mal à quelqu’un, même s’ils le font exprès, ils ne comprennent pas qu’ils lui font mal. Justine est encore là-dedans. Lorsqu’elle dit que les animaux sont comme nous, elle a cet angélisme pur. Au début du film, elle n’est pas un animal mais en en devenant réellement un, elle va pouvoir devenir un humain.

La lecture du film se veut métaphorique. - Depuis que j’ai commencé à faire des films, je travaille sur la métamorphose. Dans JUNIOR, il était question de métamorphose corporelle à travers l’histoire d’un garçon manqué qui découvre sa féminité. Après une gastro de la mort, elle commence à perdre sa peau et découvre, dessous, des écailles. Elle a un rapport charnel à sa peau pour la première fois. J’ai décidé de continué dans cette veine-là en y ajoutant un élément moral.

Vous évoquez la notion de « morale », mais GRAVE questionne au-delà celle de la « normativité ». -Evidemment. Il était essentiel pour moi de mettre en balance le cannibalisme par rapport au système du bizutage qui est un système normatif, péremptoire et vide de sens. Je trouvais ça assez drôle qu’on qualifie spontanément le cannibalisme d’insensé, alors qu’en réalité le geste de rébellion qu’il représente a beaucoup plus de sens que les règles de bizutage. Elles n’en ont aucun, mais quand ce sont des règles, on y voit du sens. Je voulais retourner ça, et, effectivement, le cannibalisme, qui part d’un geste punk libérateur pour moi et pour le personnage, s’il n’est pas gérer peut amener le personnage à sortir de l’humanité. En reconnaissant l’existence de ses pulsions, on peut décider de réagir en fonction d’elles et se créer un carcan moral ou pas.

Justine se révèle, paradoxalement, le personnage le plus humain du film. - Si ce n’était pas le cas, j’aurais vraiment foiré mon film. C’est ce que je voulais faire. Il fallait qu’on la voie manger de la chair humaine. Du coup je me suis posé plein de questions sur la gestion de ce cannibalisme-là, qui est quand même le garant de la morale du film. Si je la montrais la tête enfoncée dans des viscères, c’était mort. Je me suis dit qu’on allait faire les choses « plus petites », parce que les choses plus petites dégoutent, actent, mais permettent au spectateur de rester dans une forme de projection de soi. D’ailleurs, ça marche assez bien et c’est même plus dégoûtant : on voit peu de choses et l’imagination travaille beaucoup.

Vous n’hésitez pas à faire durer ce « plaisir » qui s’inscrit par ailleurs de manière frontale. - Pour ne pas entrer dans des stratégies d’évitement, il fallait que ce soit dans une certaine durée et que ce soit douloureux. Il

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Belgium May 17th, 2016 Nicolas Gilson Interview : Julia Ducournau

faut que ça dure pour que le spectateur puisse avoir des réactions physiques – un dégoût, un mal de ventre, le poil qui se hérisse ou l’élément qui fera qu’on se tortille dans le siège. C’est un film hyper organique. C’est aussi un film sur le corps. Je voulais des réactions physiques. Cette durée était aussi importante pour l’empathie, pour comprendre son évolution. Au début, elle-même hallucine avant de se dire : « why not ?! ». L’évolution fait qu’on comprend ; on est pas face à quelqu’un qui n’en a rien à foutre.

Cette évolution est enclenchée par une mutation physique : Justine mue. - L’alibi donné dans le film pour ses changements dermatologiques, c’est son allergie. Mais on se rend compte que ce n’en est peut- être pas une. C’est comme ses saignements de nez : elle bout de l’intérieur. Je voulais des sortes de cloques pour vraiment signifier ce feu interne : l’intérieur devient autonome et est en train de sortir. On parle évidemment de l’inconscient et des pulsions.

Le scénario est très construit de manière impressionniste. Le personnage d’Adrien, le colocataire de Justine, maghrébin, homosexuel et viril, condense des dimensions sociétales et individuelles très fortes jusque dans son prénom. - C’est un des personnages que j’ai préféré écrire. Ça a été très fluide. C’est un des personnages qui a le moins changé au fil des versions de scénario. Comme je voulais faire exploser toutes les cases qui me font suffoquer, effectivement, je voulais aller au-delà de toutes ces idées de représentation. Quand Rabah (Naït Oufella ) a eu le rôle, il m’a demandé si son personnage allait encore s’appeler Adrien. C’était pour moi évident. Il trouvait ça super parce que d’habitude, quand il rentre dans un film, le personnage s’appelle au début Nicolas puis Miloud. Ça m’a fait hurler de rire. J’en ai marre qu’on tienne des discours sur des choses sur lesquelles on ne devrait plus en avoir. Je trouve ça ringard de continuer à s’étonner de son nom, pareil pour la sexualité.

Une sexualité qu’il affirme haut et fort devenant un électrochoc pour Justine. - Adrien affirme très fort au début qu’il est homo. C’est d’ailleurs le premier truc qu’il dit. Il a décidé de s’éclater, de serrer des mecs sans qu’on lui casse les couilles. On ne comprend qu’à la fin pourquoi il l’a affirmé de manière aussi forte. Il rencontre cette meuf, il se passe un truc entre eux, ils ont une relation fusionnelle – amoureuse ou pas, mais clairement fraternelle et dans ce cas incestueuse. Je trouvais ça intéressant que, de par sa jeunesse, ce personnage qui est sûr de lui se fasse débouter par la vie. Je ne crois pas du tout au déterminisme sexuel : je pense qu’on a une tendance principale mais qu’on peut rencontrer des gens dont on tombe amoureux au-delà de tout cadre. Adrien représente ça. C’est un personnage fluide. Il ondoie entre les cases. http://www.ungrandmoment.be/interview-julia-ducournau/

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USA May 13th, 2016 Laura Berger

Cannes 2016 Women Directors: Meet Julia Ducournau — “Raw”

Julia Ducournau’s previous credits include “Mange,” a television movie made for Canal plus, and “Junior,” a short. According to her bio, each of her films has been about physical transformation. “Raw” will premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 14. The film’s French title is “Grave.”

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words. JD: “Raw” is a cross-over between teen comedy, drama, and horror — but in France the concept of crossover things doesn’t exist, so I decided to call it a modern ancient tragedy. Tragedy, as the Greeks put it, implies all kind of catharsis — through laughter, tears, and fright. I like movies that are roller coasters — onions that reveal themselves in the process. My movie is a constant metamorphosis talking about a metamorphosis. It’s also the story of a girl who finds out meat is not as bad as they say.

W&H: What drew you to this story? JD: With “Raw,” I set myself the challenge of shifting the audience’s moral standards throughout the film. I wanted the audience to feel empathy for a character that is becoming a monster in their eyes. It sounds twisted, but I believe that the building of a moral identity comes with the acknowledgement of tendencies that we qualify as monstrous or evil. I often ask myself, for example, “What’s the difference between me and someone who kills?” I wanted to disturb the audience in that way. I found inspiration in the myth of Abel and Cain.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater? JD: I think I want people to feel important and meaningful. In French, the title of my movie is “Grave.” Among many other reasons, I called it that because I realized that, when they confide in someone, people — friends, family, colleagues, me — tend to wrap up their story by saying, “Mais c’est pas grave ,” meaning, “But it doesn’t matter.” They say this in order to alleviate the weight of their words. But it does matter. The humanity in each one of us matters, however flawed and sometimes inhuman. I want people to feel responsible for their humanity in the end, because freedom comes at the price of responsibility, I think. Boy, what a bummer!

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film? JD: The biggest challenge was definitely to impose the many-faceted aspects of my film. As I said before, the concept of cross-over movies, or mixing genres, isn’t so common in France and “Raw” doesn’t fit in one particular box.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 52 (Page 2 of 2)

Cannes 2016 Women Directors: Meet Julia Ducournau — “Raw”

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made. JD: My movie was funded in a pretty classic way in the end, even if we experienced cold sweats sometimes. Arte financed the development, and Canal+ the making of the movie. We found a co-production in Belgium (Frakas Productions) where I wanted to shoot because I fell in love with my main location there. We got money from French and Belgian CNC. And a lot of other partners helped us. I feel very blessed that all these people put their trust in me.

W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play in Cannes? JD: I was in Cannes’ Critics Week with my first short, “Junior,” five years ago. I promised myself back then that this wouldn’t be the epitome of my career — that there was no other option than to come back with a feature. And I was stupid enough to tell everyone. So yeah, I’m pretty relieved.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received? JD: The best practical advice was given to me by director Bertrand Bonello when I was preparing the shooting. He said, “You can only grant yourself one luxury when you make a film. Whether it’s a famous actor/actress you absolutely want in your movie, an extravagant location, or expensive VFX. Choose it well. Because it’ll be your only one. The rest is constant struggling.”I chose being ready in time for Cannes selections in spite of a very tight schedule. The worst advice I received, well, that’s a tough question to answer because I have a very selective mind and anything that doesn’t help goes right to the trash. But I’d say it was anyone advising me not to worry about getting into Cannes because they need a quota of women directors at the festival. That went right to the trash.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors? JD: Identify yourself as a director in the media, not as a female director.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why. JD: I will only answer this question the day asking a “man director” to name his favorite “man-directed” movie doesn’t feel as awkward.

W&H: What are the filmmaking opportunities for women in your country? Have you seen recent improvements? What do you think needs to be done see some change? JD: It’s a bit hard to say because I don’t have hard data under my eyes and I’m blessed enough to work with amazing producers. I feel it’s still harder to make a movie when you’re a woman. People tend to blame the selection committees because women are underrepresented in festivals. I think the problem is much wider, actually. I do believe that producers not giving as much credit to women bearing a project as they would for men is still a reality, unfortunately. Not to mention if you’re a pregnant woman, God forbid! What to do to see some changes ? Talking about it helps, and not being afraid of being outraged when it’s legitimate. https://blog.womenandhollywood.com/cannes-2016-women-directors-meet-julia-ducournau-raw- 8f37a996b57a#.unbpdk20s

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 53 Mister Emma Belgium April 16th, 2016 Christophe Dessouroux http://www.misteremma.com/cannes-2016-mangez-grave-sans-moderation/

GRAVE : Dans la famille de Justine tout le monde est vétérinaire et végétarien. À 16 ans, elle est une adolescente surdouée sur le point d’intégrer l’école véto où sa sœur ainée est également élève. Mais, à peine installés, le bizutage commence pour les premières années. On force Justine à manger de la viande crue. C’est la première fois de sa vie. Les conséquences ne se font pas attendre. Justine découvre sa vraie nature.

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 54 SELECTED AWARDS MENTIONS

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 55 USA May 23th, 2016 Casey Cipriani

Cannes’ Women Winners: Houda Benyamina, Andrea Arnold, Maren Ade, and More

The Critics Week winner from FIPRESCI went to Julia Ducournau’s “Raw,”which the group hailed as, “An impressive debut with a strong visual language. The director tells a dark coming of age story and uses themes from horror movies to express the solitude and sexual awakening of a troubled teenage girl.” https://blog.womenandhollywood.com/cannes-women-winners-houda-benyamina-andrea-arnold-maren- ade-and-more-3e3f8c893e62#.s2m8e6qcr

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 56 UK May 19th, 2016 Kaleem Aftab

Cannes 2016: Toni Erdmann, American Honey and the Palme d'Or contenders

Away from the main competition, scenes of schadenfreude were also in abundance. The great discovery of the festival was Raw, by debutante French director Julia Ducournau. It’s about a vegetarian girl who heads to vet school and gets a taste for meat at Fresher’s week. There is a hair removal scene that ends with hospitalisation that was my favourite couple of minutes of the festival. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/cannes-2016-toni-erdmann-american- honey-andrea-arnold-palme-dor-kristen-stewart-a7037971.html

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 57 May 21th, 2016 Rebecca Ford

Cannes: 'Toni Erdmann,' 'Dogs' Take Fipresci Prizes

For the sidebar sections of Directors' Fortnight or Critics Week, Raw (Grave), the cannibal film directed by Julia Ducournau, received the prize for a first film. The flesh-eating French thriller was warmly received at the fest. (Read THR's review.) http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-toni-erdmann-dogs-take-896273

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 58 May 21th, 2016 John Hopewell

Cannes: ‘Toni Erdmann’ Wins Fipresci Competition Award

Fipresci’s third prize, awarded to a title in either Directors’ Fortnight or Critics’ Week, was snagged by “Raw.” A femme campus cannibal gorefest, cast by critics as a confident, stylish feature debut from France’s Julia Ducornau, it features a no-holds-barred perf from on-the-rise actress Garance Marillier as a student vet whose vulnerability is offset by her flesh-eating. Lead-produced by Jean des Forets, and co-produced by Rouge Intl. and FraKas Prods., the Wild Bunch-sold “Raw” will have been gobbled up by distributors at Cannes. http://variety.com/2016/film/news/toni-erdmann-fipresci-award-1201780230/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 59 Ireland May 20th, 2016 Tara Brady

Tara Brady guests with notes on the Queer Palm

Six years ago, Gregg Araki’s Kaboom took home the inaugural Queer Palm from the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, the independently sponsored prize for selected LGBTQ films has expanded into a programme of events, including a Queer Film Market and night time “activities” at Le Vertigo, “the official queer and open-minded club in Cannes”. The sidebar event now publishes its own festival magazine, Clap. The 2016 edition celebrates such recent queer titles as Tangerine, The Danish Girl and Freeheld, and lists this year’s prize contenders, as determined by a jury comprising the French film-makers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (jury presidents), French filmmaker and actor Émilie Brisavoine, Brazilian festival director Joao Federici, and French journalist Marie Sauvion.

And the Queer Palm contenders are:

Raw. Dir Julia Ducournau. 16-year-old Justine hails from a family of vegetarian veterinarians. On her first week of vet school, she strays from the family ethos and consumes meat. Dire consequences follow. '' http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/screenwriter/2016/05/20/tara-brady-guests-with-notes-on-the-queer- palm/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 60 MENTIONS

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 61 May 17th, 2016 Tatiana Siegel

Skin Flicks at Cannes: What's Up With All the Cannibal Movies?

From Steven Spielberg to French art house titles, flesh-eating is all the rage on the Croisette, and insiders say it has something to do with rising global inequality: "The rich are eating the poor more and more." It's been called the ultimate taboo. And this year, the subject of cannibalism has proved irresistible for directors at Cannes.

No fewer than five films screening at the festival feature cannibal themes, including Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay, which both are in competition. There’s also Julia Ducournau’s Raw, playing in Critics’ Week, and Sang-ho Yeon’s Train to Busanin the Midnight section.

With The BFG, Steven Spielberg didn’t go nearly as far as Roald Dahl’s classic book, which has the giants eating kids. Still, there was one scene — a dream sequence — in which Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is swallowed whole by Fleshlumpeater (Jemaine Clement). The rest of the flsh-eating in the film, which screened out of competition, is implied.

But why are so many filmmakers sinking their teeth into the cannibalism concept this year? 3B Productions’ Jean Brehat, who produced Slack Bay, says cannibalism reflects the reality of the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, thanks to hyper-capitalism and a culture of consumption.

"I think it’s a metaphor for the social struggles," says Brehat. "It’s obvious to anyone that we live in a world where the rich are richer and the poor are poorer. Even if it’s unconscious, it’s a reflection of the world we live in. The rich are eating the poor more and more."

Petit Film’s Jean des Forets, who produced Raw, echoes that sentiment. "I think you could make some sort of social-political reading of this trend," he says. "Obviously cannibalism has a very strong symbolic value linked to people getting rich while others are getting poorer."

Perhaps it’s fitting that these cannibal films should unspool in Cannes, which has become the epicenter of excess.

“It’s ridiculous. Everyone with a brain should hate Cannes. Not for the movies, but for the show of wealth,” says Brehat, referring to the yachts and the corporatization of the red carpet. “But this is where everyone comes to sell their next film.” http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannibal-movies-at-cannes-skin-894593

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 62 UK May 18th, 2016 Stephen Garett

'' Women are even making a splash in the lineups outside of the official selection. Julia Ducournau’s body- horror debut Raw, about a vegetarian co-ed at a veterinary school who gets hazed into eating meat and then develops an extreme appetite for flesh, is earning the Gallic helmer comparisons to David Cronenberg and Dario Argento.'' http://observer.com/2016/05/cannes-film-festival-2016-watching-riley-keough-dominate-shia-labeouf-is-a- thrill/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 63 INTERNATIONAL Agency, May 17th, 2016

Movies' new taste for human flesh, and even kids aren't safe

''"Raw", the big hit of the Critic's Week section, has a veggie veterinary student developing an unexpected taste for human blood in the face of her bullying classmates.The film, produced by French President Francois Hollande's actress partner Julie Gayet, had leading British critic Jonathan Romney predicting that "genre buffs will gobble it up" and insisting that "this prime cut should be the plat du jour" on cinema menus worldwide. Others drooled over its young star Garance Marillier's "ferociously uninhibited performance" https://www.afp.com/en/news/206/movies-new-taste-human-flesh-and-even-kids-arent-safe

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 64 Belgium May 19th, 2016 Eleni Paschalidis

Halfweg Filmfestival Cannes editie 2016 valt me op dat de selectie van de nevensecties Un Certain Regard en Semaine de la Critique iets hebben met straffe debuutfilms die tevens de kans hebben om de camera d’Or voor zich te winnen. Onder meer THE TRANSFIGURATION van Michael O’shea uit Un Certain Regard en GRAVE van Julia Ducournau uit Semaine de la critique. Beide films thematiseren de donkere plekken van de menselijke geest; moraliteit, obsessie, perversie, escapisme, waanzin, geweld.

Binnen de eerste tellen confronteert regisseur Michael O’shea ons met het hoofdpersonage Milo, de seriemoordenaar met wie we te maken zullen hebben. Milo (Eric Ruffin) is een eenzame tiener die zonder ouders samenleeft met Lewis (Aaron Moten) zijn oudere broer in Queens, New York. Deze outsider die nagefloten wordt door gang-jongens in de wijk, wentelt zich in zijn obsessie voor vampiers om zijn eenzaamheid te ontlopen. Het blijft niet bij het verzamelen van posters aan de muur, foto’s en films als Nosferatu (1922, Murnau) via het internet en VHS films. Deze jongen schrijft zelf boeken vol technieken en tactieken die hij bedenkt om zijn prooi te kunnen aanvallen en met regelmaat zijn macabere dorst te lessen. Het één en ander lijkt te bewegen in de versteende emoties en realiteitsbeleving van Milo wanneer Sophie (Chloe Levine) zijn maatje wordt met wie hij kan speculeren over vampiers. Wanneer Sophie de vraag opwerpt of een vampier wel zelfmoord kan plegen, is dit voor Milo een ernstige en persoonlijke zaak terwijl Sophie gewoonweg geniet van de fantasie à la Twilight.

Knap ook hoe Michael O’shea het gangsterleven in Queens weet te koppelen aan deze intelligente tiener met zijn obsessie en zijn plan. Flashbacks en hallucinaties verhelderen hoe, wat, waar, wanneer en waarom Milo’s geest het duister induikt.

Een psychologisch thriller waardoor ik ’s nachts alleen op straat wat sneller ben gaan lopen.

http://www.filmmagie.be/nieuws/cannes-transfiguration-van-michael-oshea

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 65 USA/INTL May 22th, 2016 Eric Kohn

How the Cannes Film Festival Made Movies Exciting Again — Critic's Notebook As the gigantic film gathering comes to a close, here are some reasons for optimism.

New Blood is Good Blood

"We must champion smaller films," says Pierre Rissient in "Pierre Rissient: The Gentleman Critic," a straightforward look at the legendary cineaste who has advocated for dozens of seminal directors over the years that screened in the festival's Cannes Classics sidebar.

Rissient himself couldn't make it to the festival this year, but if he had, one would hope he'd be advocating for "Raw," unquestionably the standout among potential smaller discoveries in the latest program. One of the 10 features selected for Critics' Week, "Raw" was the other allegorical cannibal tale at Cannes, and it deserved way more attention than Nicolas Winding Refn's "The Neon Demon." The French-Belgian debut from Julia Ducournau offers a surreal, deliriously twisted coming-of-age story that suggests "Heathers" by way of "Dogtooth." The plot only skirts the surface of its strange narrative: a young woman joins her sister at a massive veterinarian school campus, where she's subjected to a series of humiliating hazing rituals and discovers her taste for human flesh.

Wait a minute. Veterinarian schools have campuses with hazing rituals? And...cannibalism? Writer-director Ducournau's memorable first feature takes its off-kilter logic at face value, developing a mesmerizing look at the experience of a young woman waking up to her desires in a world of peculiarities. Alternately beautiful and grotesque, "Raw" is the kind of visionary work that proves new filmmaking talent is always lurking around the corner and waiting for the opportunity to get discovered. http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes-2016-critics-notebook-highlights-toni-erdmann-american-honey- the-red-turtle-sieranevada-raw-dog-eat-dog-neruda-death-of-louis-xiv-albert-serra

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 66 May 17th, 2016 Various

Cannes: THR Critics Pick Their 10 Favorite Films (So Far)

Everyone but vegetarians will feast their eyes on this impressively made, incredibly gory French thriller about a young woman's awakening to the pleasures of the flesh, in all senses of the term. Picture The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as an emotional coming-of-age movie set within a veterinarian college and you’ll get an idea of what Julia Ducournau'sfeature debut is like. — Jordan Mintzer http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/cannes-2016-thr-critics-pick-894641/item/cannes-2016-midway- raw-894644

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 67 USA April 18th, 2016 Emanuel Levy

Cannes Film Fest 2016: Dominated by Women, though No US Directors

The selection contains films that about current issues in original ways. Mehmet Can Mertoglu’s “Album” is about prejudice in Turkey, Vatche Boulghourjian’s “Tramontane” about a blind man on the trail of his origins in post-war Lebanon, and Kesavada Rajagopal’s “Yellow Bird,” an unusual portrait of Singapore torn by conflicts between Chinese and Indian communities.

Tesson said the French directors of this year’s Gallic lineup — notably Julia Ducournau with “Raw,” Jean-Christophe Meurisse with “Apnee” and Justine Triet with “In Bed with Victoria” — are bold and innovative in their own ways. http://emanuellevy.com/uncategorized/129807/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 68 Canada / USA May 12th, 2016 Ryland Aldrich Cannes 2016 Preview: 5 Picks From The Sidebars

Cannes is already fully packed with travelers from around the film world and we wrap up our preview series today with a look at 5 films from the Directors Fortnight and Critics Week sections. Not an easy task but we made our bed with our "Pick 5s" earlier this week for the Palme d'Or competition, the Un Certain Regard program, and the Out of Competition films. Now you tell us, what did we miss?

Raw (Grave) Julia Ducournau's feature debut is this freaky looking drama about a 16-year old vegetarian girl forced to eat meat for the first time in Veterinarian School. Critics Week http://twitchfilm.com/2016/05/cannes-2016-preview-5-picks-from-the-sidebars-gallery.html#4

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 69 May 10th, 2016 Variety Staff

Variety Critics Reveal What They’re Excited About at Cannes PETER DEBRUGE’S MUST-SEES

Raw (Julia Ducournau) Paris’ La Femis has perhaps the best track record of any film school in the world lately for helping talented female storytellers find their voices (“Mustang” and “Disorder” being prime examples). I can’t wait to sample Ducournau’s twisted-sounding debut, about a vegetarian who develops a taste for human flesh. http://variety.com/2016/film/news/cannes-film-festival-critics-movies-variety-1201769610/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 70 USA May 5th 2016 Steve Barton

THE GRAVE GET RAW AT CANNES

On tap right now are the first stills from Grave, which is appearing at Cannes as Raw. Open up, and say, “Ahhhhhhh!” Julia Ducournau directs. Rabah Naït Oufella, Laurent Lucas, and Bouli Lanners star. Synopsis: Everyone in Justine’s family is a vet. And a vegetarian. At 16, she’s a brilliant and promising student. When she starts at veterinary school, she enters a decadent, merciless, and dangerously seductive world. During the first week of hazing rituals, desperate to fit in whatever the cost, she strays from her family principles when she eats raw meat for the first time. Justine will soon face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions when her true self begins to emerge… http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/164919/grave-gets-raw-cannes/

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 71 Mister Emma - YouTube Channel Belgium April 18th, 2016 Christophe Dessouroux https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zraW8mijeHQ

Les jours se succèdent à Cannes et les nuits se font de plus en plus courtes... Au menu de cette vidéo, une rencontre avec Coralie Porrovecchio (Les Anges de la Téléréalités, NRJ12) mais aussi mon compte-rendu du cocktail belge en compagnie de la réalisatrice du film Grave, Julia Ducournau; du président du jury de Juniors Ecrans, l'acteur belge Jean-Luc Couchard; l'actrice Astrid Wettnall et Madame la Ministre de la culture de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Alda Greoli. Nicolas Gilson dit tout le mal qu'il pense de Julieta de Pedro Almodovar et Personal Shopper d'Olivier Assayas mais on vous en montre quand même les montées des marches avec la sublime Kristen Stewart (renommée par Nicolas Christine Hôtesse...).

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 72 Belgium May 21th, 2016 Alain Lorfèvre

Un féminin regard

''A la Semaine de la Critique, une autre réalisatrice française prometteuse, Julia Ducournau, a imposé son Grave, film (doublement) de genre où l’entrée dans l’âge adulte d’une jeune fille s'incarne par une mue mordante. Si la réalisatrice entend se distancier de toute analogie féministe - trop réductrice à ses yeux - elle assume néanmoins la caractère éminemment féminin de son film.'' http://www.lalibre.be/culture/cinema/cannes/un-feminin-regard-574079e035708ea2d5b5b450

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 73 Turkey May 30th, 2016 Kerem Akca

Cannes’da diger bölümlerde neler oldu?

KORKU-GERİLİM FİLMLERİ COŞKUYLA İZLENDİ

Bunun yanında ‘korku-gerilim’ ağırlığı da dikkat çekiciydi. Ana yarışmada bir hayalet, bir yamyam filmi vardı. Yan bölümlerde de “Train to Busan” (“Bu-San-Haeng”), “The Wailing” (“Goksung”), “The Transfiguration”, “Raw” (“Grave”), “Psycho Raman” (“Raman Raghav 2.0”) gibileri bunlara eklendi. Açıkçası kült olma ihtimali yüksek denemeler açısından heyecan verici bir seneydi.

Julie Ducournau’nun body-horror eğilimli yamyam filmi denemesi “Grave” (“Raw”), yeni Fransız aşırılığına yakışan sinir bozucu bir kadın öyküsüydü. Bunların en iyisiydi. “The Transfiguration”, günümüz Amerika’sında siyahi bir çocuğun gözünden vampir mitlerine bakıştı. Diyaloglarıyla Kevin Smith ve John Hughes’ün izinde sinema göndermeleriyle yoğrulup, köşesine “Martin” (1977), “Gir Kanıma” (“Låt den Rätte Komma in”, 2008) hayranlığıyla çekildi, ama ‘gerçekçilik’ konusunda vampir filmlerindeki akrabalarının üzerine çıkamadı.

http://www.haberturk.com/yazarlar/kerem-akca/1246889-cannesda-diger-bolumlerde-neler-oldu

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 74 PHOTO BREAKS

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 75 INTERNATIONAL May 14th 2016 Francois Berthier / Riccardo Ghilardi http://www.gettyimages.es/galleries/search?phrase=julia+ducournau&family=editorial&sort=

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 76 INTERNATIONAL May 22nd 2016 Yves Salmon Screenwriter and film director of Ducournau Julia is photographed on May 22, 2016 in Cannes, France. http://www.gettyimages.es/detail/fotograf%C3%ADa-de-noticias/screenwriter-and-film-director-julia-ducournau- fotograf%C3%ADa-de-noticias/533928634

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 77 SELECTED TWEETS

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- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 83 INTERVIEWS COMPLETED

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 84 RAW (GRAVE) by Julia Ducournau Cannes 2016 - Interviews Completed

*Territory *Category *Outlet *First Name *Last Name *Comments

Austria Photo SKIP Graham Whitby Julia Ducournau

Austria Print tele Julia Pühringer Julia Ducournau

Belgium Online Cinergie.be, Impolitikal Edith Mahieux Julia Ducournau

Belgium Online Misteremma.com Emma Christophe Dessouroux Julia Ducournau

Belgium Online ungrandmoment.be Nicolas Gilson Julia Ducournau

Belgium Print FOCUS VIF Matthieu Reynaert Julia Ducournau

La Libre Belgique, Julia Ducournau and Garance Belgium Print Alain Lorfèvre cinebel.be Marillier Julia Ducournau and Garance Belgium TV Prime Alejandro Rojas Marillier

Czech Republic Print/Online Actualne.cz, Patek LN Simon Safranek Julia Ducournau

Cineuropa & FRED Film Europe Radio Bénédicte Prot Julia Ducournau Radio

France Official SIC Critics' Week Anne-‐Laure Bell Julia Ducournau

Julia Ducournau and Garance France Photo Critics' Week Aurélie Lamachère Marillier

Germany Online CineOnline.Net Jérôme Sabot Julia Ducournau

Julia Ducournau and Garance International Photo Getty Images Riccardo Ghilardi Marillier ANSA New Agency, La Italy TV Nikolaos Roumeliotis Julia Ducournau Stampa Contreras Japan Print Asahi Shimbun Isabel Julia Ducournau Mandic

Netherlands Print Filmkrant Hugo Emmerzael Julia Ducournau

Sweden Radio Sveriges Radio P1 Roger Wilson Julia Ducournau

RTS -‐ Radio Télévision Switzerland Radio Philippe Congiusti Julia Ducournau Suisse

UK Online Filmfestivals.com Martin Petrov Julia Ducournau

Julia Ducournau and Garance UK Photo Freelance Yves Salmon Marillier

USA TV Eurochannel Christian Poccard Julia Ducournau

- RAW (Grave) - Cannes 2016 - Press Wrap - Page 85