WTFilms Boards Iconoclast & Ladj Ly-Produced ‘Hood Witch’ Starring Golshifteh Farahani & Denis Lavant; Heads Talk Growing Prod Ambitions

Melanie Goodfellow
·3 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based WTFilms has acquired international sales rights for thriller Hood Witch, the debut film of rising French director Saïd Belktibia, starring Golshifteh Farahani and Denis Lavant.

Iranian-French actress and activist Farahani (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No) plays a woman who makes a living smuggling exotic animals and illicit products.

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She branches out with the creation of a mobile App that connects clients with mystical marabout healers, but when a user’s consultation takes a tragic turn she finds her facing a violent backlash that could cost her and her son their lives.

The thriller is produced by Iconoclast and Les Misérables director Lady Ly’s Lyly Films.

Iconoclast’s recent credits include Romain Gavras’s Netflix original Athena, which debuted in Venice last year. The company is in Cannes this year as a producer on the Midnight Screening title The King Of Algiers.

“Saïd Belktibia is a protégé of Gavras and the whole Kourtrajmé Collective,” explains WTFilms co-head Dimitri Stephanides, referring to the filmmaking collective supported by Mathieu Kassovitz and Vincent Cassel and counting Gavras and Ly among its ranks.

In other market launches, WTFilms will also be showing first images for the previously announced survival thriller Vermin, which it is co-selling with Charades, as well as Adrien Beau’s period horror Vourdalak, starring Ariane Labeb (The Lobster) and Kacey Mottet-Klein (Happening).

Co-head Gregory Chambet notes the diversity of the slate, spanning all types of genre and storytelling styles.

“Hood Witch has a social and feminist edge while Vourdalak is based on a novel that has never been adapted to cinema before (The Family of the Vourdalak). It was one of the first novels to talk about vampires. The novelty of the film is the vampire is represented by a puppet. It’s got a Tim Burton feel to it.”

Now in its 11th year, WTFilms was a pioneer in the now increasingly busy genre space in France.

“WTFilms was really the first company to only work on genre but now everyone’s doing a bit of genre – in the post-pandemic era, it’s really working, even for the studios,” said Chambet. “It means we really have to look for singular directors. It’s all in the execution of the direction in genre.”

Alongside their international sales activities, Chambet and Stephanides have also been ramping up their in-house production activities.

The company has acted as an associate partner on a raft of films in the past, including Deep Fear, Meander and Deerskin.

Over the past year, it has brought two in-house productions to fruition: Jennifer Reeder‘s Perpetrator and Xavier Gens’ action thriller Farang.

Perpetrator debuted at the Berlinale and will soon play at Tribeca, ahead of a theatrical release on Shudder in August.

The company is gearing up for the June 28 launch in France of Gens’ action thriller Farang, which it co-produced with Studiocanal.

“It’s an ambitious action film with incredible action scenes. With our production company, we’re not really doing horror but more action, we’re getting involved in genre in the wider sense,” said Stephanides.

The company has another five titles in the same vein in development, with the aim of kicking at least one of them into production in late 2023, early 2024.

Stephanides suggests that a void has been left in the French market due to the current inactivity of Luc Besson’s film company EuropaCorp, which was once the market leader in action pictures on the back of the Taxi, Taken and Transporter franchises.

“A space has been left by EuropaCorp and everyone is trying to fill it, including us,” says Stephanides.

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