Helena Wittmann’s Sailing Drama ‘Human Flowers of Flesh’ US Trailer
by Alex Billington
March 17, 2023
Source: YouTube
“A towering, teetering and exquisitely-wrought puzzle box.” The Cinema Guild has released an official US trailer for a French-German indie film titled Human Flowers of the Flesh, which originally premiered at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival last year. Opening at the Metrograph in NYC in April, with hopefully more cinemas to follow. In her spellbinding followup to the critically acclaimed Drift, Helena Wittmann invites us to relinquish control and join her on a Mediterranean voyage unlike any other. Ida lives on a sailing yacht with a crew of five men. While on shore leave in Marseilles, she becomes fascinated with the French Foreign Legion and decides to sail to Sidi Bel Abbès (see Google Maps), the Legion’s former headquarters in Algeria. This stars Angeliki Papoulia (also seen in Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster, Green Sea, Patchwork) as Ida, along with Steffen Danek, Gustavo Jahn, Ingo Martens, and Denis Lavant. The film looks extremely experimental and intensely meditative, definitely not for everyone, but it’s certainly intriguing nonetheless.
Here’s the official US trailer for Helena Wittmann’s Human Flowers of Flesh, direct from YouTube:
After a stirring encounter with the French Foreign Legion, Ida (Angeliki Papoulia), sets sail with her own corps of five men, none of whom speak the same language, to trace the route of this fabled troop. Their voyage will take them from Marseille to Corsica and finally to Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, the historical headquarters of the Legion. Along the way, boundaries blur. Life at sea produces a special kind of mutual understanding. A legionnaire of yore makes an about-face. Human Flowers of Flesh is both written and directed by acclaimed German cinematographer / indie filmmaker Helena Wittmann, her second feature after making Drift (2017) previously, and tons of other short films. Produced by Christophe Bouffil-Cantoni, Birgit Glombitza, Karsten Krause, and Frank Scheuffele. This initially premiered at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival last year. The Cinema Guild will debut Wittmann’s Human Flowers of Flesh in select US theaters (NYC’s Metrograph) starting on April 14th, 2023 this spring. For full theater listings, visit the official site.
