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Armand

Panorama

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Canadian Premiere

When six-year-old Armand is accused of abusing another boy, his mother Elisabeth (The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve) is called in for a school meeting with the boy’s parents and a panel of key staffers. Volatile confrontations between the adults quickly follow, as do revelations about their own tangled histories. With the boys themselves never seen or heard from, it soon becomes clear that this sordid situation is about much more than just the children.

The debut feature of Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel (the grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann), Armand is a lacerating drama about the social controls we permit in our daily lives—and impose on our children. As the plot spirals outward from its claustrophobic, chamber-play premise, Reinsve matches the unpredictable narrative with a thrilling, live-wire turn as a protective mother caught in an impossible position. Winner of this year’s Camera d’Or at Cannes, it is a story to reckon with.

 

Caméra d’Or, Cannes 2024

 

Intense. The film starts by promising a bourgeois social drama about secrets and lies, suspicions and rivalries, and the troubled waters of juvenile and adult sexuality. What it ultimately becomes is much harder to define, but the result is resonant and haunting – and should spark plenty of post-screening discussions.

Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily

Director
Cast

Renate Reinsve, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Thea Lambrechts Vaulen, Endre Hellestveit, Øystein Røger, Vera Veljovic

Credits
Country of Origin

Norway/Netherlands/
Germany/Sweden

Year

2024

Language

In Norwegian with English subtitles

18+

At International Village

19+

At Fifth Avenue

116 min
Action & Suspense Award Winners Drama
Film i Väst, Eye Eye Pictures, KeplerFilm, ONE TWO Films

Book Tickets

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Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Dyveke Bjørkly Graver

Producer

Andrea Berentsen Ottmar

Screenwriter

Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel

Cinematography

Pål Ulvik Rokseth

Editor

Robert Krantz

Original Music

Ella van der Woude

Art Director

Victoria Waelgaard

Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel headshot; Armand director

Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel

Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel is a trained film director from Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication and Technology. He debuted with the short film Bird Hearts (2015), which won the Golden Chair in Grimstad and was nominated for a national Amanda award among other honors. In 2017, he made the short film Fanny, which was also nominated for an Amanda. Tøndel was one of ten European filmmakers in the 2015 Future Frame Program at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, organized by the European Film Promotion in cooperation with Variety. Armand is his first feature film.

Photo by Mediebank

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