Simon Killer

Director: Antonio Campos
Screenwriters: Antonio Campos

Institute History

  • 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Description

A recent college graduate goes to Paris after breaking up with his girlfriend of five years. His life should be open-ended and full of promise, but he can’t shake his feelings of loss. Being a stranger in a strange land only aggravates his situation. When he falls in love with a young mysterious prostitute, a fateful journey begins, though we soon learn that Simon is the one with deeper secrets.

Director/screenwriter Antonio Campos is a powerful, visceral storyteller. He and his team have created the perfect cinematic language to bring this hauntingly dark odyssey to life. The camerawork is exquisite and the sound design rich, engineered to permeate your psyche and make you feel you are walking in Simon’s shadow. Brady Corbet, a gifted Festival alumnus, inhabits the dark soul of Simon in one of his most complicated and fully realized performances. In fact, every role is perfectly cast to keep the film taut and tense. Simon Killer is a neonoir thriller that creates an unsafe world where the line between truth and dishonesty blurs.


(Archives note: see also Antonio Campos' Meet The Artist interview on our YouTube Channel.)

— John Cooper

Screening Details

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