Brandon Cronenberg

Last updated

Brandon Cronenberg
Brandon Cronenberg.jpg
Cronenberg in 2023
Born
Brandon Cronenberg

(1980-01-10) January 10, 1980 (age 44)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Alma mater Toronto Metropolitan University
Occupations
  • Director
  • screenwriter
Years active2008–present
Father David Cronenberg
Relatives Caitlin Cronenberg (sister)
Denise Cronenberg (aunt)
Aaron Woodley (cousin)

Brandon Cronenberg (born January 10, 1980) is a Canadian director and screenwriter. [1] He is the son of renowned filmmaker David Cronenberg and the brother of Caitlin Cronenberg. [2] He is known for his science fiction horror films Antiviral (2012), Possessor (2020) and Infinity Pool (2023). He has won several accolades for his work. [3] [4] [5]

Contents

Early life

Cronenberg was born in Toronto, the son of filmmakers David Cronenberg and Carolyn Zeifman, and the brother of photographer Caitlin Cronenberg. [2] He also has a half sister, Cassandra, from his father's first marriage. Cronenberg studied film at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada. He initially considered himself to be a "book nerd" growing up, who was interested in becoming a writer, painter, or musician. He came to realize that film contained all those elements and attended film school. [6]

Career

Antiviral

In 2008, Cronenberg directed a short film titled Broken Tulips, about people who pay to be injected with viruses that were harvested from celebrities. Cronenberg has stated that the genesis of the film was a viral infection he once had. More precisely, the "central idea came to him in a fever dream during a bout of illness," wrote journalist Jill Lawless. [7] [8] It was further shaped when he saw an interview Sarah Michelle Gellar did on Jimmy Kimmel Live! ; what struck him was when "she said she was sick and if she sneezed she'd infect the whole audience, and everyone just started cheering." [9]

The short was adapted from a script he was working on for his first feature, Antiviral . [10] Principal photography for the feature film adaptation took place in Hamilton, Ontario and in Toronto. [11]

Antiviral debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. [12] [13] Cronenberg and his father both screened films at that year's Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time a father and son screened films together in the festival's history. [2]

Cronenberg re-edited the movie after the festival to make it tighter, trimming nearly six minutes from its running time. The revised version was first shown at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it tied for the award for Best Canadian First Feature Film. [14] [3] It later won the Citizen Kane Award for Best Debut Feature at the Sitges Film Festival. [15]

Please Speak Continuously... and Possessor

In 2019, Cronenberg's short film Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You , starring Deragh Campbell, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Critics' Week section. [16] The film won the Canal+ Grand Prize at L'Étrange Festival in Paris, and in December 2019 was included in TIFF's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list for short films. [17] [18]

Cronenberg stated that visuals for Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You came from experiments he and his cinematographer Karim Hussain were doing for a feature film he was making called Possessor . [19]

Possessor was released the following year, starring Christopher Abbott, Andrea Riseborough, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tuppence Middleton and Sean Bean. [20] It premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, where US distribution rights were picked up by Neon. [21] [22] The film won awards for Best Feature Length Film and Best Direction at the Sitges Film Festival that year, as well as the Grand Prize at the 2021 Gérardmer Film Festival. [4] [5] The film also received three nominations at the inaugural Critics' Choice Super Awards in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category, for Best Movie, Best Actor, and Best Actress. [23] It was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's year-end Canada's Top Ten list for feature films. [24]

Infinity Pool

At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival it was announced that Cronenberg's third feature would be a film called Infinity Pool , based on an original script of his. [25] Infinity Pool stars Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth, and will play at both the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival. [26] [27] Neon are distributing in the US, with a commercial release set for January 27, 2023. [28]

Upcoming work

In 2021, it was announced that he would write and direct an adaptation of the J. G. Ballard novel Super-Cannes as a limited series for television. [29]

In June 2024, it was announced that Cronenberg is working with Sam Barlow and Half Mermaid on a sci-fi horror FMV videogame code named Project C. It will be published by Blumhouse Games. [30] [31]

Filmography

Short film

Feature film

YearTitleDirectorWriterExecutive
producer
2012 Antiviral YesYesNo
2020 Possessor YesYesNo
2023 Infinity Pool YesYesYes

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Cronenberg</span> Canadian filmmaker and film director (born 1943)

David Paul Cronenberg is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is a principal originator of the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infectious diseases, and the intertwining of the psychological, physical, and technological. Cronenberg is best known for exploring these themes through sci-fi horror films such as Shivers (1975), Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986), though he has also directed dramas, psychological thrillers and gangster films.

<i>Spider</i> (2002 film) 2002 film

Spider is a 2002 psychological thriller film produced and directed by David Cronenberg and based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Patrick McGrath, who also wrote the screenplay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sitges Film Festival</span> Annual Spanish film festival

The Sitges Film Festival and also translated as Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia and originally the International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies, is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain. It specialises in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost international festivals. Established in 1968, the festival takes place every year, usually in early October.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Hecker</span> Canadian electronic musician, producer, and composer

Tim Hecker is a Canadian electronic musician, producer, composer, and sound artist. His work, spanning albums such as Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006), Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) and Virgins (2013), has been widely critically acclaimed. He has released eleven albums and a number of EPs in addition to a number of film scores and collaborations with artists such as Arca, Ben Frost, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Daniel Lopatin, and Aidan Baker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Smith (actor)</span> Canadian actor

Douglas Alexander Smith is a Canadian actor known for his work on the HBO series Big Love as Ben Henrickson. His other work includes Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013), Terminator Genisys (2015), Vinyl, Miss Sloane, When We Rise (2017), The Alienist (2018–2020) and the second season of HBO's Big Little Lies (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lance Weiler</span> American film director

Lance Weiler is an American filmmaker and writer from Pennsylvania, and the Director of the Digital Storytelling Lab at Columbia University School of the Arts. He first was known for The Last Broadcast (1997), a found footage horror film which he co-wrote, co-produced, co-directed, and co-starred in with Stefan Avalos. The Last Broadcast made cinematic history on October 23, 1998 as the first all-digital release of motion picture to be stored and forwarded via geosynchronous satellite. Initially working as an assistant cameraman and camera operator on large commercial shoots, in Pennsylvania and later New York City, Weiler is known for increasing work in experimental combinations of film, AI, gaming, and related media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Gadon</span> Canadian actress

Sarah Lynn Gadon is a Canadian actress. She began her acting career guest-starring in a number of television series, such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1999), Mutant X (2002), and Dark Oracle (2004). She also worked as a voice actress on various television productions. Gadon gained recognition for her roles in David Cronenberg's films A Dangerous Method (2011), Cosmopolis (2012), and Maps to the Stars (2014). She also starred in Denis Villeneuve's thriller Enemy (2013), the period drama Belle (2013), and the action horror film Dracula Untold (2014).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Pingue</span> Canadian actor and film maker

Joe Pingue is a Canadian actor and film maker. His roles include Captain McDowell in the Prime sci-fi series The Expanse, Aloznzo Bunker in the Netflix Western limited series Godless, Whiff in Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go and Hoyt in the feature film The Book of Eli.

<i>Splice</i> (film) 2009 film by Vincenzo Natali

Splice is a 2009 science fiction horror film directed by Vincenzo Natali and starring Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, and Delphine Chanéac. The story concerns experiments in genetic engineering being done by a young scientific couple, who attempt to introduce human DNA into their work of splicing animal genes resulting in the creation of a human–animal hybrid. Guillermo del Toro, Don Murphy, and Joel Silver are credited as executive producers of this film. Theatrically released on June 4, 2010, the film received generally positive reviews from critics but was commercially unsuccessful, and grossed just $27.1 million against a $30 million production budget.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caleb Landry Jones</span> American actor and musician

Caleb Landry Jones is an American actor and musician, known for his roles as Louis Corbett in Breaking Bad, Banshee in X-Men: First Class, Jeremy Armitage in Get Out, and Red Welby in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. His accolades include a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and a AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as Martin Bryant in Nitram.

<i>Antiviral</i> (film) 2012 science fiction horror film

Antiviral is a 2012 science fiction horror film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg. The film competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Cronenberg re-edited the film after the festival to make it tighter, trimming nearly six minutes out of the film. The revised film was first shown at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, and was a co-winner, alongside Jason Buxton's Blackbird, of the festival's Best Canadian First Feature Film award.

Jason Buxton is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He wrote and directed three short films, A Fresh Start, The Garden and The Drawing, before debuting his first full-length feature film, Blackbird, in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verónica Chen</span>

Verónica Chen is an Argentine film director, film editor, and screenwriter. She is part of the Argentine New Wave movement. In 2020, she received the Best New Director award for Vagón Fumador at the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mia Goth</span> English actress (born 1993)

Mia Gypsy Mello da Silva Goth is an English actress. After modelling as a teenager, Goth made her acting debut in the erotic art film Nymphomaniac (2013). She earned recognition with the films The Survivalist (2015), High Life (2018), Suspiria (2018), and Emma (2020). She achieved a career breakthrough for playing Maxine Minx and Pearl in the X film series (2022–2024), which established her as a scream queen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julio Chavezmontes</span>

Julio Chavezmontes is a renowned Mexican producer and screenwriter, winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and twice nominated for the AMACC Ariel Award. He has produced more than 20 films, many of which have been screened at the world's leading film festivals, including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and Toronto, among others. His productions have received multiple accolades, most recently the Best Director Award (“Annette”) and the Jury Prize (“Memoria”) at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

<i>Possessor</i> (film) 2020 film directed by Brandon Cronenberg

Possessor is a 2020 science fiction psychological horror film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg. It stars Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott, with Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean, and Jennifer Jason Leigh in supporting roles. Riseborough portrays an assassin who performs her assignments through possessing the bodies of other individuals, but finds herself fighting to control the body of her current host (Abbott).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Topic Studios</span> American film production company

Topic Studios is an American film production company owned by First Look Media. The company is known for producing films Leave No Trace (2018), Luce (2019), The Climb (2019), The Mauritanian (2021). The company also produces television shows including Love Fraud (2020) and 100 Foot Wave (2021).

Lisa Berry is a Canadian actress, seen regularly on television with appearances in The Colony, Northpole: Open for Christmas, Combat Hospital, Bad Blood, Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, 19-2 and Supernatural.

<i>Infinity Pool</i> (film) 2023 film by Brandon Cronenberg

Infinity Pool is a 2023 science fiction horror film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, and starring Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, and Cleopatra Coleman. The film follows a struggling writer and his wife on vacation who, after an accident, discover the country's dark culture.

Rob Cotterill is a Canadian film producer and assistant director. As part of Yer Dead Productions with friend and director Jason Eisener, they created Treevenge (2008) and, along with John Davies, Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) after making a winning mock trailer for Grindhouse (2007). Cotterill has also done production work for Possessor (2020), Tin Can (2020), Kids vs. Aliens (2022), and Infinity Pool (2023).

References

  1. ↑ "Brandon Cronenberg | La Semaine de la Critique of Festival de Cannes". Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 "Cronenberg family snapshots". The Globe and Mail . May 28, 2012. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
  3. 1 2 "2012 Toronto International Film Festival Winners". Collider. September 16, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  4. 1 2 de la Fuente, Anna Marie (October 18, 2020). "Brandon Cronenberg's 'Possessor Uncut' Wins the Sitges Festival's Best Film, Director Awards". Variety. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  5. 1 2 AlloCine (January 31, 2021). "Gérardmer 2021 : Possessor de Brandon Cronenberg et les sauterelles de La Nuée au Palmarès". AlloCiné (in French). Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  6. ↑ Stone, Jay (September 12, 2012). "I was a 'book nerd' not a cinephile, says Cronenberg son". canada.com. Retrieved September 11, 2012.
  7. ↑ Lawless, Jill (May 22, 2012). "Brandon Cronenberg Is a Chip off the Bloody Block". Sioux City Journal . Retrieved March 17, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Cronenbergs Bring Father-Son Story to Cannes: Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral a Genre Film Like Father's Early Work". CBC News . May 22, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2013.
  9. ↑ Johnson, Ron (September 2012). "Time for Cronenberg 2.0". Post City Magazines (September 2012). Retrieved September 11, 2012.
  10. ↑ "Interview: "Antiviral" Director Brandon Cronenberg Talks the Horror of Celebrity Obsession". Complex. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  11. ↑ Etan, Vlessing (November 3, 2011). "Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell Join 'Antiviral'". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved August 23, 2013.
  12. ↑ "2012 Official Selection". Cannes. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Cannes seeing double Cronenbergs". Toronto Sun. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  14. ↑ Kirkland, Bruce (September 9, 2012). "Brandon Cronenberg brings first feature film 'Antiviral' home". torontosun.com. Retrieved September 11, 2012.
  15. ↑ "FESTIVAL ARCHIVES - Sitges Film Festival - Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya". sitgesfilmfestival.com. Archived from the original on January 29, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  16. ↑ Tartaglione, Nancy (April 22, 2019). "Cannes Critics' Week Lineup Features 'Vivarium' With Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg – Full List". Deadline. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  17. ↑ "L'Etrange 2019: VIVARIUM Wins Grand Prize, THE ODD FAMILY: ZOMBIE ON SALE Wins Audience Award". ScreenAnarchy. September 22, 2019. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  18. ↑ Norman Wilner, "TIFF announces Canada's top 10 films of 2019". Now , December 11, 2019.
  19. ↑ "Sloan Science & Film". www.scienceandfilm.org. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  20. ↑ Ritman, Alex (February 10, 2019). "Berlin: Sean Bean, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stacy Martin Board Sci-Fi Thriller 'Possessor'". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  21. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 27, 2020). "Brandon Cronenberg Sci-Fi Thriller 'Possessor' Acquired By Neon". Deadline. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  22. ↑ Patten, Dominic (December 4, 2019). "Sundance 2020: Angelina Jolie, Robert Redford, Riley Keough, Bruce Lee Docu, Lena Waithe & LGBTQ+ Rights Pack Lineup". Deadline. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  23. ↑ "Flights Of Fantasy". Watch Magazine. January 4, 2021. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
  24. ↑ Victoria Ahearn, "Toronto International Film Festival releases Top Ten lists for 2020" Archived January 4, 2021, at the Wayback Machine . Squamish Chief , December 9, 2020.
  25. ↑ Goodfellow, Melanie. "Celluloid Dreams boards Brandon Cronenberg's 'Infinity Pool'". Screen Daily. Archived from the original on May 10, 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  26. ↑ Lattanzio, Ryan (December 8, 2022). "See Sundance First Looks for 25 Buzzy Films, from 'Cat Person' to 'Passages'". IndieWire. Retrieved December 9, 2022.
  27. ↑ Roxborough, Scott (December 20, 2022). "Berlin Fest Adds World Premieres of John Malkovich's 'Seneca,' Alex Gibney's Boris Becker Doc". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  28. ↑ Squires, John (December 16, 2022). "Dip Your Toes into Brandon Cronenberg's 'Infinity Pool' With Official Poster for Mia Goth Movie". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  29. ↑ Ramachandran, Naman (May 20, 2021). "Brandon Cronenberg to Adapt J.G. Ballard Novel 'Super-Cannes' as Series". Variety. Archived from the original on May 20, 2021. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  30. ↑ Carr, James (June 7, 2024). "Blumhouse Is Going All In On Horror Games, Including One From Sam Barlow And Brandon Cronenberg". GameSpot . Retrieved October 19, 2024.
  31. ↑ Melanson, Angel (June 7, 2024). "Brandon Cronenberg Made A Video Game And We Can't Wait To Play It". Fangoria . Retrieved October 19, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.