French director Sarah Arnold’s debut feature Too Many Beasts (L’Espèce Explosive) has won the Europa Cinemas Label prize for best European film in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight section.
Set in northeastern France where wild boars are devastating crops, Too Many Beasts sees a grain farmer on the verge of ruin, break down and disappear. A year later, Fulda, an impulsive police officer, and Stéphane, a therapist in crisis, investigate – and what they discover is beyond their comprehension.
Too Many Beasts will now receive the support of European exhibition network Europa Cinemas, with additional promotion and incentives for exhibitors to extend the film’s run on screen.
The Cannes Europa Cinemas Label jury this year comprised four exhibitors: Panos Achtsioglou (Olympion Cinema, Thessaloniki, Greece); Octavian Dăncilă (Cinema Victoria, Cluj Napoca, Romania); Alicia Hernanz (Lucernaire, Paris, France) and Māris Prombergs (Kino Bize, Riga, Latvia).
The jury said: “Too Many Beasts is a really fresh and original début feature. It is a real genre bender, encompassing action, romance, thriller, comedy, police procedural and even some romance.
”A big part of its appeal is how the accessible plot consistently takes the audience in totally unexpected directions – and the last fifteen minutes is a delicious and crazy psychedelic fueled roller coaster. It is also a very human film – subtle and not didactic in any way, but it does look at corruption and how communities can come together to find solutions. Many congratulations to Sarah Arnold and her team. We all loved it, and we feel confident that audiences around Europe will too.”
Sold internationally by Playtime, Too Many Beasts is a 5À7 Films production, a co-production with France 3 Cinéma and Playtime, in association with Pan Distribution, Ubik&Co, Cinemage 20, Cofinova 22, Sansofica, Centre National Du Cinéma et de L’image Animée, Procirep-Angoa, La Sacem de la Région Grand Est, in partnership with CNC.
Arnold’s first short film, Leçon de ténèbres, in 2010, won the jury award at the Turin Film Festival. She followed it with Totems in 2014, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival where it received the Pardino d’Oro. Her film Store Policy, screened at Clermont-Ferrand, won the France TV Award for Best Short Film in 2021.
It is the 23rd time the Europa Cinemas Label has been awarded at Cannes. Past winners include Wild Foxes, The Other Way Around, One Fine Morning, A Chiara and The Selfish Giant.
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