The Sitges Film Festival is not only the home for the most wicked and gory films coming out this year, but it also has a spot for good-hearted fantasy tales. And, this year, they have chosen one of the latter as the closure title for this year’s festival edition.
Dream Scenario (2023) satirical swipe at celebrity and group-think. It features Nicolas Cage as Paul Matthews, a listless family man and tenured professor with an affinity for evolutionary biology and anxiety regarding his own anonymity. One day, he discovers he has begun to appear in other people’s dreams at an exponential rate. As in life, his presence in these dreams is banal and non-intrusive – he’s simply there, staring indifferently at the fantasies and nightmares of strangers. Nonetheless, he becomes an overnight celebrity and is soon showered with the attention he has long been denied. But when Paul encounters a dreamer whose visions of him differ substantially from the norm, he finds himself grappling with the Faustian bargain of fame as his dream selves start inexplicably becoming violent within their respective subconsciousness.
The writer, editor, and director of the movie is the awards-winner filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, marking this his first production outside Norway. The film is produced by Ari Aster, one of the most notorious horror and fantasy directors of the current panorama after his films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019). At first, Aster was originally going to direct Dream Scenario (2023) with Adam Sandler in the main character, but after Kristoffer Borgli‘s previous film, the awards-winner horror-drama Sick Of Myself (2022), got good reviews, it encouraged Ari to let him direct his own script.
Together with Nicolas Cage, the main cast is led by Julianne Nicholson, the Best Actress at the Primetime Emmy Awards for her role in the mini-series thriller Mare of Easttown (2021). Lily Bird, Jessica Clement, Star Slade, David Klein, Kaleb Horn, Liz Adjei, Paula Boudreau, Marnie McPhail, Noah Lamanna, Tim Meadows, Dylan Baker, and Michael Cera complete the main cast.
Dream Scenario (2023) had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2023, where it was nominated for the Platform Prize. It will also be part of the Zurich Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, San Diego International Film Festival, and Indie Memphis Film Festival.
The Sitges Film Festival 2023, in its 56th edition, is taking place in the small idyllic Catalan coast town of Sitges from the 5th to the 15th of October. The festival will open with the world premiere of Paco Plaza’s latest work, the horror and mystery Sister Death (2023) (also known as Hermana Muerte in the original Spanish language). The closure will take place on the 14th of October with Dream Scenario (2023), being its premiere outside North America.
A24 is producing and distributing the film and will release it in theaters on November 10, 2023.
Watch the official trailer for Dream Scenario (2023).
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