Body swaps are usually bad news in movies. I was a real estate agent close to a big deal, now I have to find a date for junior prom? Then, a wacky journey back to status quo — because the way things were is how they should be.
Or not, forwards “Skin Deep,” the intimate and slippery debut feature from German Kazakhstani director Alex Schaad. Adopting a high concept usually fit for farce, Alex Schaad and his brother, co-writer and actor Dimitrij Schaad, take on the body swap premise in search of more, destabilizing their characters’ notions of gender and bodily autonomy along the way.
Releasing stateside in New York and Los Angeles theaters this month, “Skin Deep” debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. The premiere was already a dream come true for the brothers; then they won the Queer Lion, a prize voted for by a jury of critics...
Or not, forwards “Skin Deep,” the intimate and slippery debut feature from German Kazakhstani director Alex Schaad. Adopting a high concept usually fit for farce, Alex Schaad and his brother, co-writer and actor Dimitrij Schaad, take on the body swap premise in search of more, destabilizing their characters’ notions of gender and bodily autonomy along the way.
Releasing stateside in New York and Los Angeles theaters this month, “Skin Deep” debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. The premiere was already a dream come true for the brothers; then they won the Queer Lion, a prize voted for by a jury of critics...
- 2/3/2024
- by J. Kim Murphy
- Variety Film + TV
It’s quiet but Poor Things and American Fiction are selling tickets.
The Yorgos Lanthimos film starring Emma Stone enters the weekend at just over $26 million on 1,950 screens, continuing a strong theatrical run for a movie some have called bonkers but is zipping along. American Fiction adds a few hundred screens this weekend in the latest leg of a carefully orchestrated platform release that has really worked for this film.
A24’s Zone Of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s landmark Holocaust film, is expanding. New specialty openings include Magnolia Pictures’ The Promised Land, Mubi’s How To Have Sex and Kino Lorber’s Skin Deep.
It’s a weekend with just one studio wide release that may have petered out. Some recent weeks have had zero new wide release. That’s been helping specialty films.
Poor Things’ screen count is down from about 2,400 last week, which was the widest since a Dec.
The Yorgos Lanthimos film starring Emma Stone enters the weekend at just over $26 million on 1,950 screens, continuing a strong theatrical run for a movie some have called bonkers but is zipping along. American Fiction adds a few hundred screens this weekend in the latest leg of a carefully orchestrated platform release that has really worked for this film.
A24’s Zone Of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s landmark Holocaust film, is expanding. New specialty openings include Magnolia Pictures’ The Promised Land, Mubi’s How To Have Sex and Kino Lorber’s Skin Deep.
It’s a weekend with just one studio wide release that may have petered out. Some recent weeks have had zero new wide release. That’s been helping specialty films.
Poor Things’ screen count is down from about 2,400 last week, which was the widest since a Dec.
- 2/3/2024
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
The saying goes that in order to understand someone, you have to walk a mile in their shoes, but Alex Schaad’s broad yet entrancing “Skin Deep” offers an alternate method: In order to understand someone, try swapping bodies with them for a few days. That solution might be less efficient, but it’s far more complete. Indeed, the mysterious white tower at the center of the Esalen-like island retreat where this lightly supernatural German drama takes place is nothing if not a machine that creates empathy. It creates other feelings too, but the people who seem most receptive to and transformed by the experience tend to think of empathy as the ultimate goal, if only because they’ve exhausted all other means of achieving it.
These people aren’t sociopaths, they’re just in long-term relationships. They’ve arrived at that sad — but inevitable? — point where the soft intimacy...
These people aren’t sociopaths, they’re just in long-term relationships. They’ve arrived at that sad — but inevitable? — point where the soft intimacy...
- 2/2/2024
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Alex Schaad’s Skin Deep is a film with a body-swapping premise that’s notable for its restraint. Though as fresh and conceptually far-reaching as a David Cronenberg film, it traffics in body ambivalence more than body horror, striking an eerie, wistful tone.
The story hinges on the interplay of various couples. The central of these, Leyla (Mala Emde) and Tristan (Jonas Dassler), travel by ferry to a remote and idyllic island where seasonal body-switching rituals take place. There they join Leyla’s friend Stella (Edgar Selge) in the initially jarring form of her elderly father, who recently died while inhabiting Stella’s aneurism-prone body. Leyla’s been suffering from chronic depression, so she and Tristan have decided to give the ritual a try, in the hope that a temporary shift in embodied perspective might help. They’re paired by lottery with another couple: Fabienne (Maryam Zaree) will swap with Leyla,...
The story hinges on the interplay of various couples. The central of these, Leyla (Mala Emde) and Tristan (Jonas Dassler), travel by ferry to a remote and idyllic island where seasonal body-switching rituals take place. There they join Leyla’s friend Stella (Edgar Selge) in the initially jarring form of her elderly father, who recently died while inhabiting Stella’s aneurism-prone body. Leyla’s been suffering from chronic depression, so she and Tristan have decided to give the ritual a try, in the hope that a temporary shift in embodied perspective might help. They’re paired by lottery with another couple: Fabienne (Maryam Zaree) will swap with Leyla,...
- 1/28/2024
- by William Repass
- Slant Magazine
"You are the person you are, because of the body you have." Kino Lorber has revealed the new official US trailer for the indie German low key sci-fi drama titled Skin Deep, from filmmaker Alex Schaad. Not to be confused with the 1989 sex comedy with John Ritter also called Skin Deep. This first premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and won the Queer Lion award, with stops at the Hamburg, Zurich, and Göteborg Film Festivals. At first glance, Leyla and Tristan seem like a happy young couple. When they travel to a remote, mysterious island, a game of identities begins, which changes everything – their perception, their sexuality, their whole "self." Kino Lorber adds: "Subverting genre and gender as it toggles from body swap thriller to intimate relationship drama, Skin Deep tells a story that transcends bodies, embracing the endless fluid possibilities in the question of what it means to truly love someone.
- 1/9/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
We meet Leyla (at this stage played by Mala Emde) and Tristan (Jonas Dassler) on the boat as they travel to the island. Leyla has been dozing. The air is fresh and damp with spray. There’s that sense of possibility which often precedes a holiday or other break from day to day routine, but neither of them can anticipate how much their experience will change them. Tristan has not understood how wrong things are to begin with, and Leyla may not quite understand why.
They are travelling to an island for a unique spiritual experience. There are plenty of those out there, you might note, but this is a little different. After picking out a lottery ticket, they are randomly paired with another couple, Mo (Dimitrij Schaad) and Fabienne (Maryam Zaree). Mo’s sleazy comments as he tries to break the ice may make you wonder if this is some kind of.
They are travelling to an island for a unique spiritual experience. There are plenty of those out there, you might note, but this is a little different. After picking out a lottery ticket, they are randomly paired with another couple, Mo (Dimitrij Schaad) and Fabienne (Maryam Zaree). Mo’s sleazy comments as he tries to break the ice may make you wonder if this is some kind of.
- 3/4/2023
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Kino Lorber acquires North American rights to Alex Schaad’s ‘Skin Deep’ from Beta Cinema (exclusive)
Schaad’s directorial debut won the Queer Lion after debuting at Venice Critics’ Week.
Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights from Beta Cinema to Alex Schaad’s body swap thriller Skin Deep, which premiered in 2022 in Venice Critics’ Week, where it was awarded the Queer Lion.
Skin Deep is the directorial debut of Alex Schaad, who previously won the Student Academy Award for his social media thriller Invention of Trust.
The film is co-written by Schaad and his brother Dimitrij Schaad and produced by Tobias Walker and Philipp Worm of Walker + Worm Productions, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Donndorffilm.
In the film,...
Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights from Beta Cinema to Alex Schaad’s body swap thriller Skin Deep, which premiered in 2022 in Venice Critics’ Week, where it was awarded the Queer Lion.
Skin Deep is the directorial debut of Alex Schaad, who previously won the Student Academy Award for his social media thriller Invention of Trust.
The film is co-written by Schaad and his brother Dimitrij Schaad and produced by Tobias Walker and Philipp Worm of Walker + Worm Productions, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Donndorffilm.
In the film,...
- 2/17/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Wil
A television director for about a decade (including episodes for Peaky Blinders), Tim Mielants got into features with 2019’s Patrick (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival) followed by 2021’s Nobody Has to Know (a non-solo which had its world preem at TIFF). Production on the ambitious WWII drama Wil took place in May of last year in Liege and Poland featuring Stef Aerts, Matteo Simoni, Annelore Crollet, Kevin Janssens, Dirk Roofthooft, Dimitrij Schaad and Pierre Bokma. Producers include Hans Everaert, Guy Goedgezelschap, Tomas Leyers and Jan Segers.
Gist: Based on the bestselling novel by Jeroen Olyslaegers and written by Carl Joos, Wilfried Wils is an auxiliary policeman in Antwerp at the start of the Second World War.…...
A television director for about a decade (including episodes for Peaky Blinders), Tim Mielants got into features with 2019’s Patrick (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival) followed by 2021’s Nobody Has to Know (a non-solo which had its world preem at TIFF). Production on the ambitious WWII drama Wil took place in May of last year in Liege and Poland featuring Stef Aerts, Matteo Simoni, Annelore Crollet, Kevin Janssens, Dirk Roofthooft, Dimitrij Schaad and Pierre Bokma. Producers include Hans Everaert, Guy Goedgezelschap, Tomas Leyers and Jan Segers.
Gist: Based on the bestselling novel by Jeroen Olyslaegers and written by Carl Joos, Wilfried Wils is an auxiliary policeman in Antwerp at the start of the Second World War.…...
- 1/9/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Exclusive: Netflix has renewed German spy thriller Kleo for a second season.
The show is set in 1987 and follows East German spy Kleo Straub, played by Jella Haase, who kills a businessman in West Berlin while on a mission with a secret Stasi commando. Not long after, she’s arrested by the Stasi on spurious claims and denounced by everyone she knows. After two years in jail, the Berlin Wall falls, and Kleo is suddenly free, but she soon finds out that the conspiracy against her is much bigger than she could have imagined, and an ominous red suitcase appears to be the missing puzzle piece.
Kleo season one was unveiled on a mega Netflix Europe slate that included almost 20 projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, at which point the streamer committed to doubling its investment in the region to 500M Euros (482M) between 2021 and 2023. Other shows on the slate included historical thriller The Empress.
The show is set in 1987 and follows East German spy Kleo Straub, played by Jella Haase, who kills a businessman in West Berlin while on a mission with a secret Stasi commando. Not long after, she’s arrested by the Stasi on spurious claims and denounced by everyone she knows. After two years in jail, the Berlin Wall falls, and Kleo is suddenly free, but she soon finds out that the conspiracy against her is much bigger than she could have imagined, and an ominous red suitcase appears to be the missing puzzle piece.
Kleo season one was unveiled on a mega Netflix Europe slate that included almost 20 projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, at which point the streamer committed to doubling its investment in the region to 500M Euros (482M) between 2021 and 2023. Other shows on the slate included historical thriller The Empress.
- 9/29/2022
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
What makes a person? Mind or body? Take that line of inquiry even further and ask what it is you love about your significant other. Is it how they look or who they are? The combination of answers to these questions are infinite because we as people are too. Maybe looks or humor or generosity got you through the door, but those can’t stop you from leaving alone. At some point you must dig deeper to discover it’s the indefinable essence beneath their skin and psyche that truly draws you close. And if that’s necessary to be able to spend the rest of your life with this person who was a total stranger mere seconds before you met them, shouldn’t it also be true to love yourself?
The lucky of us who never have to ask often never think to ask, either. It’s why someone...
The lucky of us who never have to ask often never think to ask, either. It’s why someone...
- 9/5/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
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