Part of SFFILM Festival
The Beast in the Jungle
Guests Expected
Director Clara van Gool and actors Dane Jeremy Hurst and Sarah Reynolds are expected to attend both screenings.
Description
This unique film combines rich cinematography, breathtaking landscapes, and arresting moments of contemporary dance to explore the inner worlds of two star-crossed lovers in a ravishing adaptation of a Henry James short story. Accomplished dancers Dane Jeremy Hurst and Sarah Reynolds race through time, from the Victorian era to the present day, unable to find in words what their bodies convey through, at first, paroxysmic movements of pain and then lyrical evocations of the loneliest fears within us all.
“The film leaves its audience with two feelings in particular – melancholy given the film’s philosophical reflections and the joy of having received an invitation: an invitation to experience the relationship we have with life, and therefore with cinema, as a long yet very short twist dance, both intense yet light-hearted at the same time, just like The Beast in the Jungle.” – Roberto Oggiano, Cineuropa
With support from
Kate & Bill Duhamel
CO-PRESENTED BY
SF Dance Film Festival
Clara van Gool is a graduate of the Dutch Film and Television Academy. As a director, her work is concentrated on movement and dance. Among her films are Enter Achilles (1996), winner of The Festival’s Golden Spire for Television – Performance Special; Nussin (1998), recipient of the Nederlands Film Festival’s Golden Calf for Best Short Film; Passing Future – 3 Solo’s (2001); Coup de Grâce (2011); and One False Move (2011). Of The Beast in the Jungle van Gool says, “When I read the book, I could see that it could be the premise for a dance film… the novella is about something you cannot describe with words, and I read it a bit like a duet that is waltzing around the subject all the time. In the book, you don’t really know what the Beast is, and for me, if you want to understand what is going on, you have to see it as choreography – not as the choreography of movements, but of words.”
Trailer
Film Details
Year 2019
Language English
Premiere North American
Runtime 87
Country Netherlands/Luxembourg
Director Clara van Gool
Producer Hanneke Niens, Hans de Wolf
Writer Clara van Gool, Glyn Maxwell
Editor Stefan Kamp
Cinematographer Richard van Oosterhout
Music Jeannot Sanavia
Cast Dane Jeremy Hurst, Sarah Reynolds, Claire Johnston
Print Source Juno Filmselizabeth@junofilms.comjunofilms.com