Element Pictures have announced that principal photography has started on ‘The Lobster’, the first English language film by Yorgos Lanthimos, whose ‘Dogtooth’ won numerous international awards and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
The film stars Dublin-born Colin Farrell (Saving Mr. Banks) alongside English actress Rachel Weisz (Oz the Great and Powerful) in the leading roles. John C. Reilly (Step Brothers), Ashley Jensen (How to Train Your Dragon), Michael Smiley (The World’s End) and Jessica Barden (Hanna) also join the previously announced Ben Whishaw (Skyfall), Léa Seydoux (Inglourious Basterds), Olivia Colman (The Iron Lady), Ariane Labed (Before Midnight) and Angeliki Papoulia (Dogtooth).
A love story set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or face transforming into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods.
Co-written by Lanthimos and his long-time collaborator, award-winning Efthimis Filippou, ‘The Lobster’ will be shot over seven weeks on location in Ireland. It is being produced by Element Pictures, Limp and Scarlet Films. Producers on the film are Lanthimos, Lee Magiday, Ed Guiney and Ceci Dempsey, with Element’s Andrew Lowe and Film4’s Tessa Ross and Sam Lavender acting as executive producers. Isabel Davis is the lead executive for the BFI Film Fund and Rory Gilmartin for the Irish Film Board.
Partnering on the project are Christos V. Konstantakopoulos of Faliro House in Greece, Carole Scotta of Haut et Court (who will be both the French co-producer and distributor of the film), Derk-Jan Warrink, Joost de Vries and Leontine Petit of Lemming Films in Holland.
‘The Lobster’ is being financed by Film4, the Irish Film Board, the BFI Film Fund (the first film through its minority co-production strand), Eurimages, Greek Film Centre, CNC, the Dutch Film Fund and Canal+.
Farrell, a Golden Globe winner for ‘In Bruges’, was recently seen in Disney’s ‘Saving Mr Banks’ and plays the lead role in Akiva Goldsman’s ‘Winter’s Tale’ for Warner Bros.
