Albert Serra Director
Filmography Selected
Born in Banyoles in 1975, Albert Serra is a Catalan artist and director. Having studied philosophy and literature, he wrote plays and produced different video works. He gained an international recognition with his first long feature, Honor of the Knights, a free adaptation of Don Quijote, played by non- professional actors from his village. The film was presented at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2006.
For his second film, Birdsong, Serra took inspiration in a traditional Catalan Christmas song, El cant dels ocells, and worked with the same group of people to tell the story of the Three Wise Men following their guiding star to find Jesus.
In 2013, the Centre Pompidou in Paris gave him carte blanche for a correspondence with the Argentinian director, Lisandro Alonso. The same year, he received the Golden Leopard at Locarno for his new film Story of my Death, inspired by Casanova’s memoirs.
The Death of Louis XIV, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as the Sun King, was presented in the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival 2016.
Liberté, starring Helmut Berger, Marc Susini and Baptiste Pinteaux, is the cinematic recreation of his 2018 Berlin Volksbühne play of the same name, which won the Special Jury award at the 2019 Un Certain Regard selection in Cannes.
In 2022, he returned to Cannes in the Official Selection in Competition with Pacifiction.
| 2022 |
Pacificction |
| 2019 |
Liberté |
| 2016 |
The Death of Louis XIV |
| 2013 |
Story of my Death |
| 2008 |
Birdsong |
| 2006 |
Honor of the Knights |
| 2022 |
Pacifiction |
| 2019 |
Liberté |
| 2016 |
The Death of Louis XIV |
| 2013 |
Story of my Death |
| 2008 |
Birdsong |
| 2006 |
Honour of the Knights |
★★★★★
"A flâneur's eye view of French Polynesia.
An intoxicating pleasure.
Benoît Magimel is perfectly cast as a tarnished roué in Albert Serra's enigmatic and transifixing film."
Jonathan Romney, The Financial Times
★★★★★
"Albert Serra's spellbinding anti-colonial drama...portending hell in paradise."
Graham Fuller, The Arts Desk
★★★★★
“Impressively unique and distinctly cinematic. It’s what movies should be.”
Alex Matrixia, UKFilmReview
★★★★★
"Entrancing...transports us to a land that is very real and somehow not of this earth, where the sky is perpetually on fire. The film is of such stupendous beauty because, and not despite the fact that, we annot really understand what is going on."
This is not a binary world anymore, if it ever was and Serra masterfully erases boundaries.'
Anne-Katrin Titze, Cinevue
★★★★★
"Albert Serra's filthy genius new film flashes a neon light into the Conradian Heart of Darkness in French Polynesia.
There is a definite erotic fizz to the shadiness and corruption smells so invitingly sweet. This is a film which portrays evil which never loses sight of the former beauty of the fallen angel in his white suit and tinted glasses."
John Bleasdale, DMovies
★★★★
“Brilliant new film
Pacifiction is by far Serra's most serious and sombre film to date, an epic of neutered power and human expendability - a death-knell for humanity that's rendered as a tropical daydream."
David Jenkins, Little White Lies
★★★★
"I can only say I was captivated by the film and its stealthy evocation of pure evil (...)Its waywardness is part of Serra's authorship:it is an authentic descent into darkness."
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"Albert Serra's film builds tension beautifully as a French high commissioner navigates intrigue...feverish...atmospheric piece."
Wendy Ide, The Observer
"A hazy tropical fantasia. Although the result is as far from agitprop as Serra can make it, it works surprisingly well as an 'exotic' rumination on what it's like to surf the giant waves off a postcolonial beach."
Tony Rayns, Sight & Sound
★★★★1/2
"Mesmerizing...blends thriler genre tropes with surrealism to put the audience into a dread-induced hynoptic trance."
Hector A. Gonzalez, Loud and Clear
★★★★
"Wonderfully shot - from nice vistas to grim bars and clubs - the idea of Eden corrupted sings out."
Dan Carrier. Camden New Journal/Islington Tribune/West End Extra
"Stunning. Albert Serra’s languid but brilliant espionage drama... Incorporating themes of colonialism and the effects of modern-day tourism, Pacification quietly layers political mystery and insight into Tahitian life in this highbrow epic.
Rachel Ho, The Globe and Mail
"The gorgeous new movie ‘Pacifiction’ will hypnotize you. You should let it.
... a trouble-in-paradise movie where the trouble doesn’t overwhelm the paradise so much as poison it, at an almost imperceptible slow drip, from the inside."
Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
“This noir-tinged story...a murky — in every sense — tale of political intrigue and municipal power struggles that refuses to be resolved or reveal any mysteries by the end. It’s like a Polynesian version of Chinatown but made by a cast and crew stoned on rum and ketamine."It’s got a fun central performance from Benoît Magimel and a spectacular Tahitian location. There’s even a surfing scene, the closest Serra may have ever gotten to an action sequence.”
Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter
"One of the most beautiful and rigorously introspective movies of this year or any year, a film that makes you deeply ponder the fate of humanity itself."
Christina Blauvelt, IndieWire
"A sprawling, glittering essay on neo-colonisalism in French Polynesia.
Although containing some elements of a classic paranoid thriller, Pacifiction is really more of a detailed character study, uninterested in plot progression and more so in creating a fully rounded portrayal of a human being."
David Katz, Cineuropa
"A film in many ways about floating, through life and water and power, inviting the viewer to idly drift right along with it."
Guy Lodge, Variety
"A Gorgeous & Grave Tropical Anti-Epic Filled With Post-Colonial Intrigue"
Mark Asch, The Playlist
“The bold colors, the sunsets, and the giant waves of Tahiti looke phenomenal on the big screen; on a level of aesthetics’. it’s hard to watch ‘Pacifiction’ and not want to shout ‘Cinema!’
Ben Kenigsbert, Rogerebert.com
★★★½ (out of 4)
"“Albert Serra’s hypnotic look at contemporary malaise...It’s hardly a spoiler to indicate that none of this leads to a big shootout (...) What we do get, at a staggering but never tedious 3 hours, is a carefully sustained orchestration of mood and tone “
…De Roller is immediately detectable in Serra’s spacious, relaxed compositions, and deadpan comedy is often mined from his gawky presence alone. His way with words is another source of farce”
Carson Lund, Slant Magazine
"Strangely captivating...a truly original cinematic experience."
Lee Marshall, Screen International
"Albert Serra’s “Pacifiction": Here is the Art Film of the Year.
A narratively elliptical puncturing of French colonialism in Tahiti that Eric Kohn likened to Apichatpong Weerasethakul and David Lynch...on the 'Best Film' list.
An immersive tropical thriller/reverie - it's one of the great experiences in cinema."
IndieWire's Cannes Film Coverage
“Albert Serra hits a career high with the boundless, brilliant Pacifiction.
A film unlike any other this year...Serra's vision ultimately is s beguiling as it is boundless, and strangely romantic. Albert Serra hits a career high with the boundless, brilliant Pacifiction."
Rory O’Connor, Film Stage
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"One of the most beautiful and rigorously introspective movies of this or any year, a film that makes you deeply ponder the fate of humanity itself."
— Christian Blauvelt, IndieWire
-
"Strangely captivating... a truly original cinematic experience."
— Lee Marshall, Screen Daily
