Bret Easton Ellis will chair the jury of the 41st International Film Festival in Ghent
- Ghent Festival presents as chair of its jury one of the most outrageous but also one of the most acclaimed authors of modern literature: novelist and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis
The Ghent International Film Festival has just announced amidst the humid torpor of this Belgian summer that American author Bret Easton Ellis will chair the jury of its next edition in October. A true star of Anglo-Saxon literature, Bret Easton Ellis developed a solid reputation as a misanthropic writer through his novels, describing in minute detail the listless and blurred daily life of rich kids spaced out on psychotropic drugs. His work is full of psychopaths, some of whom deliberately commit acts of violence; Ellis is not one to shy away from a good gore scene. Faced with a grim and uncompromising Herault in the 1980s, he knew how to transition to the 21st century, notably by settling down in Hollywood, where he multiplies his TV and cinema projects. Although his first project as screenwriter, The Canyons, aroused more curiosity than support, many are now dying to discover a little more of Ellis' writing onscreen, writing that is highly referential, and intrinsically linked to the pop culture of his era. Indeed, it is important to remember the incredible adaptation of his novel The Laws of Attraction by director Roger Avary, or even that of the slightly less convincing masterpiece American Psycho.
Ellis is thus a screenwriter, but also a cinema-lover. Very active on Twitter, he is regularly observed leaving destructive micro-critiques of recent films. Nonetheless looking more closely, his account has countless declarations of love and admiration for cinema in general, moving between genres, and bearing a strong interest in European productions, as shown by his top 3 best films released in the USA in 2014 (Nymphomaniac [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Louise Vesth
film profile], Stranger by the Lake [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alain Guiraudie
film profile] and Omar), or even his crush on The Kid with a Bike [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile] ("I don't want to oversell the Dardenne's The Kid with a Bike but it's about saving a child's life and incredibly moving. It's their masterpiece.") or Young and Beautiful [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: François Ozon
film profile] ("Francois Ozon's Young & Beautiful, about a gorgeous 17-year-old Parisian girl becoming a high-end escort, is riveting & morally fascinating."). With his jury in Ghent, he will award the Prize for best film, as well as the Prize for best original soundtrack.
(Translated from French)
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