James R | On 13, May 2022

MUBI has picked up The Five Devils ahead of its debut at Cannes this month.

The global distributor, streaming service and production company has acquired the UK, Ireland, LATAM, North America, India and Turkey rights to Léa Mysius’s debut. Starring Palme d’Or winner Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color), the film will have its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight section.

Léa Mysius’s first feature, Ava, premiered at Cannes in the Critics’ Week section in 2017. She is also a co-screenwriter of Claire Denis’s The Stars at Noon, receiving its World Premiere in the Main Competition section at the Cannes Film Festival. Mysius’ screenwriting work includes collaborations with Arnaud Desplechin (Oh Mercy! and Ismael’s Ghosts), Jacques Audiard (Paris, 13th District), and André Téchiné (Farewell to the Night).

The film follows Vicky (newcomer Sally Dramé), a strange and solitary little girl who has a magical gift: she can reproduce any scent she finds, which she bottles in an assortment of carefully labeled jars. One of those scents belongs to her mother, Joanne (Exarchopoulos), to whom Vicky feels an almost obsessive attachment. When the sudden reappearance of her father’s sister, Julia (Swala Emati), upends their conservative Alpine village and threatens the family’s sense of domestic bliss, Vicky finds that by reproducing her aunt’s smell, she can traverse a series of increasingly dark and archaic memories that reveal the secrets of her village, her family, and her own existence.

The film joins Park Chan-wook’s Cannes-bound Decision To Leave, which was also picked up by MUBI in recent weeks. MUBI’s co-production One Fine Morning from Mia Hansen-Løve will also premiere during Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

The film will be released by MUBI theatrically in the US, UK and Ireland followed by an exclusive MUBI streaming release.

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