Cannes Festival Invites Supernatural Border

Danish director Ali Abbasi, whose debut feature Shelley was nominated at both the Bodil and Robert Awards this year, will compete in the Un Certain Regard sidebar of the 71st Cannes Film Festival (8 – 19 May) with his supernatural love story Border (Gräns), based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In).

A border guard (Eva Melander) with a sixth sense for identifying smugglers develops a strange attraction to a suspect (Eero Milonoff) who is the first she has been unable to prove guilty. The ensuing investigation soon calls into question her entire existence, as she is forced to confront terrifying revelations about herself and mankind.

Ali Abbasi said: “Ancient natural mysticism is mixed with Swedish everyday life, and it is that mix of the supernatural with the normal that creates the film’s universe. Border is about finding your place in the world, and not really knowing who you are or where you belong. It’s also about the Western world’s way of dealing with those who deviate from the norm.”

The jury for Un Certain Regard, which celebrates original voices in film, will be presided over by Benicio del Toro, who won Best Actor at Cannes in 2008 for his starring role in Steven Soderbergh’s movies Che Parts 1 & 2.