A queer, gender-flipped take on Conan The Barbarian from French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico is heading to the United States, and the trailer gives us a glimpse of what the film entails.
Mandico’s movie, titled She Is Conann, is shot on 35MM film and, as the trailer teases, reveals that different reincarnations of Conann travel through time and confront one another, with associated tragedy, love, and weirdness occurring as they do so in a quest to understand their place outside of time, space, and meaning.
Gird yourself for the synopsis:
In a barbaric fantasy sci-fi trip through time, sword-and-sorcery mythology is bent, fractured, and gender-swapped by master visionary Bertrand Mandico in his third feature epic. Six lives, six eras, and six deaths mark Conann’s poetic journey through different incarnations and lesbian loves. Guiding Conann through her many epic lives is Elina Löwensohn (Amateur, Let the Corpses Tan) as Rainer, a Cerberus of many otherworldly dimensions whose paparazzi camera sees all.
Mandico was reportedly inspired by films such as The Wild Boys, After Blue (Dirty Paradise), Fellini Satyricon, The Night Porter, The Hunger, as well as—according to the marketing material—“Fassbinder’s entire oeuvre.”
The movie stars Claire Duburcq (1917, After Blue), Christa Théret (Renoir), Sandra Parfait (Lupin), Agata Buzek (After Blue) Nathalie Richard (After Love) and Françoise Brion (L’Immortelle) as the many faces of Conann. Julia Riedler and Elina Löwensohn also star.
She Is Conann will play in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Denver starting on February 2, 2024. Here’s a poster of the movie to mull over in the meantime:
