MUBI to release Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay in cinemas this June
David Farnor | On 25, Apr 2017
MUBI will premiere Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay this summer in the UK.
Starring Juliette Binoche and Fabrice Luchini, the film (which has the original title of Ma Loute) is a fiery black comedy, set on the French coast in the early 1900s.
MUBI acquired the film last year following the Cannes Film Festival, where it also picked up The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki. Now, as Olli Maki debuts in UK cinemas, MUBI is preparing to bring Bruno’s latest to our screens.
“We were looking for something really special at Cannes this year and in Olli Maki and Ma Loute we have found just that,” said MUBI’s founder Efe Cakarel of the acquisitions last year. “Bruno Dumont… is someone who we have deeply admired and followed for a long time, so being able to acquire his latest film in Competition is a dream.”
MUBI will be teaming up with New Wave Films once more to distribute the movie in cinemas on Friday 16th June.
Set in summer 1910, where several tourists have vanished from the beautiful beaches of the Channel Coast, the film sees infamous inspectors Machin and Malfoy investigate the mysterious disappearances. Soon, they gather that the epicentre is Slack Bay, a unique site where the Slack river and the sea join only at high tide and home to a small community of fishermen and other oyster farmers.
Among this community exists the curious Brufort family, lead by a father who rules as best as he can on his wayward bunch of sons, especially the impetuous, 18 year old Ma Loute. The community is also home to the Van Peteghems. Every summer, this bourgeois family – degenerate and decadent from inbreeding – descends from its mansion and mingles during their leisure hours with the ordinary local people.
Over the course of five days, a peculiar love story begins between Ma Loute and the young and mischievous Billie Van Peteghem, causing confusion between both families, shaking their convictions, foundations and their very way of life.
Described by MUBI as “surreal, anarchic and beautifully shot”, Slack Bay will then be released exclusively on the subscription streaming service later this summer.