IFC Picks Up Distribution Rights to Year's Most Controversial Flick

The net has been awash with buzz regarding the Lars Von Trier shocker Antichrist ever since it resulted in a major blowup on Monday at the Cannes Film Festival. But now, it looks like all that controversy did was land the movie a distribution deal. Which anyone with any media savvy could've predicted anyway.

The blowup revolved around what has been described as "explicit sexual gore" in the picture, referring presumably to scenes depicting such things as bloody masturbation (that should rack me up some Google search hits...) Apparently, some members of the press took serious offense, and a shouting match actually ensued between journalists and the rather eccentric Von Trier, who laughed off their outrage dismissively.

"Since it premiered at Cannes on Monday, we haven't been able to stop 
talking or thinking about Antichrist," IFC Entertainment president Jonathan Sehring said in a story reported today on Horror-Movies.ca.

The film stars Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who play a couple recovering from the death of their child who retreat to a lonely cabin in the woods (and if horror movies have taught us anything, it's that nothing good could ever happen in such a place). The movie apparently also hinges on the conceit that the world was in fact created not by God, but by Satan.

IFC will be handling the American release of the film, although it is not yet announced whether that will be theatrical or direct-to-DVD. The German production will be making the rounds in theaters across Europe throughout the summer and fall.



P.S. If you've read and watched all this and don't immediately want to board a plane to Europe to see this thing, then you're reading the wrong blog.