Irish Film: Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster to be released from October 16th

Fresh from its Jury Prize at the 68th Cannes Film Festival, Yorgos Lanthimos’s critically acclaimed The Lobster,will be released simultaneously in the UK & Ireland on October 16th by Element Pictures Distribution and PictureHouse Entertainment.

A surreal, romantic drama and winner of the Jury Prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, The Lobster stars Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz with a supporting cast including Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, John C.Reilly, Olivia Colman and Ashley Jensen.

The Lobster is 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.  If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods.  A desperate Man escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules.

The film is the English language debut of Greek director Lanthimos, who first came to international prominence with debut feature Dogtooth, winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize in Cannes and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2011 Academy Awards.

The Lobster is written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou and produced by Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Ceci Dempsey and Yorgos Lanthimos. Executive Producers are Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross and Sam Lavender with Isabel Davis as the lead executive for the BFI Film Fund. The film was developed by Element and Irish finance for the film came from the Irish Film Board with Rory Gilmartin as the lead executive for the IFB.

The Lobster will be released in Ireland by Element Pictures Distribution on 16 October 2015.