Ismael's Ghosts

Legendary filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin (A CHRISTMAS TALE, KINGS & QUEENS, MY GOLDEN DAYS) opened the 2017 Cannes Film Festival with a truncated version of the intoxicatingly circuitous ISMAEL’S GHOSTS, starring César and Lumiere winner Mathieu Amalric, Cannes Best Actress winner Charlotte Gainsbourg and Oscar® winner Marion Cotillard. Laemmle Theatres will screen the full-length Director’s Cut of the film – 20 minutes longer and markedly different in tone from the Cannes version.

Twenty-one years ago, she ran away. Now, twenty-one years later, Carlotta (Cotillard) is back from the void. But Ismael (Amalric) has been busy rebuilding a life for himself with Sylvia (Gainsbourg) and working on his next feature film. As Ismael's trials and tribulations unfurl, so too do those of the film-within-a-film’s protagonist: the idle, funny and reckless diplomat Ivan Dédalus (Louis Garrel).

The character is a nod to the ghost of another of Desplechin's creations, the brother of Paul Dédalus, three-time hero of MY SEX LIFE… OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT, A CHRISTMAS TALE and MY GOLDEN DAYS. With ISMAEL’S GHOSTS, Desplechin returns once more to the past and proves yet again that his brand of genius lies in his ability to find light in the darkest of places.

“A jubilantly complex tale within a tale — possibly within yet another tale — Arnaud Desplechin’s ISMAEL’S GHOSTS exudes the lived-in familiarity of a director who knows his characters inside out and the daring and panache of a creator whose creations are still full of surprises, even for him.” – Lisa Nesselson, Screen International

“At its best, the movie is a freewheeling gambit, hurtling in multiple directions at once, and it’s thrilling to watch Desplechin try to juggle them all… Amalric is at the height of his powers as a frumpy, wide-eyed romantic slave to his passions and so lost in thought that the movie seems to exist at the whims of his restless mind.” – Eric Kohn, Indiewire