Paul Schrader‘s highly-anticipated “Oh, Canada” is landing stateside very soon.
The feature, which premiered in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and went on to screen at TIFF, stars Jacob Elordi and Richard Gere as a documentarian in two different stages of his life, with Elordi playing the younger version of Gere. The film is an adaptation of late author Russell Banks’ 2021 novel “Foregone.” Banks and director Schrader previously collaborated on “Affliction.”
“Oh, Canada” tells the story of fictional filmmaker Leonard Fife (Gere), who wants to tell his life story on camera before dying. Uma Thurman and Michael Imperioli also star. The film was acquired for North American distribution by Kino Lorber.
Schrader reunites with “American Gigolo” star Gere for the film; however, Schrader previously admitted to Letterboxd that Robert De Niro was first approached to lead “Oh, Canada” before he reached out to Gere.
Schrader additionally described the film to IndieWire as about “Canada being a metaphor for death,” he said. ‘It’s my ‘Ivan Ilyich.’” The auteur told IndieWire that while his films have not “had, by and large, a very successful, immediate financial life, I’ve been very fortunate in having shelf life.”
The Oscar winner later shared that he is working on a new script about the “post-dying” process, titled “Non Compos Mentis.” He told Screen that the film centers on “two brothers, their demented mother, a younger girl they both fall in love with, and their wives.” He is also preparing “The Basics of Philosophy” about “an intellectual university philosophy professor.”
Schrader said to Variety that most of his recent films “have all been turned down by Amazon, Netflix.”
Read the IndieWire review for “Oh, Canada” here.
“Oh, Canada” premieres in select theaters December 6 from Kino Lorber. Check out the trailer below.
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