The Damned

The Damned

TIFF65: Greek Premiere
Winter, 1862, in the midst of the American Civil War. A group of Northern soldiers is sent to explore an uncharted region in the western frontier. As they move through the eerie, silent landscape, they are drawn into a ghostly, mist-covered world where the lines between morality and savagery, life and death, become blurred. Roberto Minervini’s film, reminiscent of the early works of Terrence Malick, blends historical realism with a haunting naturalism, crafting a mystical allegory about the blood-soaked origins of America. These characters, searching for purpose and communicating with an absent god, seem like wandering spirits in a liminal space. Ultimately, they come to realize William Faulkner’s words: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Roberto Minervini
Script: Roberto Minervini
Cinematography: Carlos Alfonso Corral
Editing: Marie-Hélène Dozo
Sound: Bernat Fortiana Chico
Music: Carlos Alfonso Corral
Actors: Jeremiah Knupp, René W. Solomon, Cuyler Ballenger, Noah Carlson, Judah Carlson, Tim Carlson, Bill Gehring
Production: Okta Film, Pulpa Film, Rai Cinema
Producers: Paolo Benzi, Denise Ping Lee, Roberto Minervini, Paolo Del Brocco
Co-production: Michigan Films, VOO OBE Be tv, Shelter Prod
Co-producers: Alice Lemaire, Sébastien Andres
Format: DCP
Color: Color
Production Country: Italy, USA, Belgium
Production Year: 2024
Duration: 89'
Contact: Les Films Du Losange
Awards/Distinctions: Best Director (ex-aequo) – Un Certain Regard, Festival de Cannes 2024

Roberto Minervini

Roberto Minervini is an Italian-born film director, living and working in the United States. He is widely considered one of the world’s most prominent auteurs of narrative documentaries, which combine dramatized and observational elements. After completing a Master of Arts in Media Studies at the New School in New York City in 2004, Roberto taught Documentary Filmmaking at the university level in Asia. In 2007, he moved to Texas, where he directed three feature films, The Passage, Low Tide and Stop the Pounding Heart, a Texas Trilogy focused on rural communities in the American South. He then went on to direct two feature films set in Louisiana, The Other Side and What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?, shifting to the political realm of American society and touching on social injustice. More recently he has begun to produce the work of other visionary filmmakers through his production company Pulpa Film, including Payal Kapadia’s first fiction film All We Imagine as Light and Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka. Roberto’s latest film, The Damned, is his first fiction film.

Filmography

2005 Voodoo Doll (short)
2005 Notes (short)
2005 Come to Daddy (short)
2006 The Fireflies (short)
2011 The Passage (doc)
2012 Low Tide (doc)
2013 Stop the Pounding Heart (doc)
2015 The Other Side (doc)
2018 What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (doc)
2024 The Damned