The Congress Trailer Reveals Beautiful New Film From The Director Of Waltz With Bashir

Writer/director Ari Folman made an incredible splash in the film world when he directed 2008's Waltz With Bashir, but has been away ever since. Finally, however, he's finally back and ready to debut his latest movie, The Congress, to the crowds of Southern France in the Cannes Film Festival. And watching the first trailer, seen above via The Film Stage, we should be in for a really cool-looking, special treat.

The beginning of the spot isn't great and mostly just plain exposition (particularly everything that Harvel Keitel says), but once Danny Huston's character shows up and the sci-fi element is introduced it takes off like a rocket. Loosely based on the novel The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem, the film looks like an awesome, meta inside-look at Hollywood and identity.

In the film Robin Wright stars as a fictional version of herself. Instead of being a successful working actress as she is today, she is instead aging and out of work.She gets an interesting opportunity, however, when she is offered the chance to donate everything about herself to be copied and used forever. Doing so sends her mind on a trip towards understanding who she is. Paul Giamatti, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Frances Fisher co-star.

The people of France are lucky not only that the film will premiere at Cannes but that it's also confirmed to be released over there on July 3rd. It doesn't appear to have a release date anywhere else yet. Expect to hear some buzz later this month when The Congress makes its debut.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.