XYZ Films has acquired North American sales rights to the horror-thriller “Deus Irae,” the debut feature of Argentine filmmaker Pedro Cristiani, and will introduce the film to buyers at the upcoming AFM. PvNew has been given exclusive access to the film’s bone-chilling trailer (see below).
Premiering at the Mar Del Plata Film Festival in November, “Deus Irae” follows Father Javier, a priest living a fractured existence. On one side, he assists families who claim to have witnessed miracles, and on the other he belongs to a trio of excommunicated priests who hunt the possessed down to exorcize them under their own terms: with Bibles, fire and shotguns.
But when the only way to crush Evil is by becoming something even worse, he must question how much of his own humanity — or sanity — he’s willing to sacrifice in order to defeat the Devil.
Produced by Molino Studio and Hudsonman, INC, “Deus Irae” is based on the short film of the same name, which took home more than 25 international awards on the festival circuit. It was showcased as a work-in-progress at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film, the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea, Argentina’s Ventana Sur, the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, and the Coming Soon Selection of the Sitges Film Festival, where it won the top prize of the Sitges Pitchbox.
Watch the trailer here:
Director Cristiani broke into the film industry as author of the sci-fi feature “Moebius” (1997), which scooped a number of prizes on the festival circuit, including the FIPRESCI Award at the Vienna Film Festival. “The goal of ‘Deus Irae’ was to develop a completely independent film that pushed the visual and storytelling boundaries like no genre feature dared to do,” the director told PvNew. “But in the six years that took to bring it to completion, it became so much more: a volatile, highly stylized, fearless film. And we couldn’t be more privileged than having XYZ Films supporting us from the very beginning.”
“We first discovered the immensely talented Pedro Cristiani when the short film version of ‘Deus Irae’ was traveling the global festival circuit and it has been an absolute thrill to work with him on bringing his vision for the full feature to the world,” said XYZ Films’ Todd Brown. “Pedro is an immense talent and ‘Deus Irae’ is a totally unique work.”
XYZ Films’ slate includes Atom Egoyan’s TIFF selection “Seven Veils,” starring Amanda Seyfried, “Ash,” starring Eiza González and Aaron Paul and directed by Flying Lotus, the Netflix Original “Havoc,” directed by Gareth Evans and starring Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker, and “Daniela Forever,” directed by Nacho Vigalondo and starring Henry Golding and Beatrice Grannó.
Recent XYZ films include “Blackberry,” released by IFC Films, the Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead film “Something in the Dirt,” which premiered at Sundance, and the Nick Cassavetes film “God Is a Bullet,” starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Maika Monroe.
