Banner Indonesian action thriller “Queen of Malacca,” “The Glorious Dead” from U.S. DIY horror legends the Adams Family and killer severed penis drama-thriller “Astrolatry” feature at another robust lineup at the Cannes Festival’s Frontières Platform.
Cannes’ biggest genre showcase, running over May 17-18, Frontières Platform offers further proof genre’s build in artistic ambition and industry terms.
One of Frontières most awaited titles announced at Cannes and “lighting up” JAFF Market 2025, Variety reported, “Queen of Malacca” marks the latest from courted filmmaker Angga Dwimas Sasongko, behind “Stealing Raden Saleh,” Indonesia’s highest-grossing action film with over 2.3 million admissions.
Soon on the heels of January’s release of “Mothers of Flies,” the Adams Family collective – father John, mother Toby Poser and daughters Zelda and Lulu – are back with “The Glorious Dead,” a “new take on what the end of the world might look like – for those still living and those the grave can’t keep down,” John Adams and Poser told Variety.
“There’s DIY filmmaking, and then there’s the horror factory that the Adams Family has created in the Catskill Mountains woods near their New York state hometown,” Variety commented in January.
A memorable new creature feature, “Astrolatry” turns on a chronic masturbator obsessed with a model who accidentally castrates himself – the sensitive should not watch that scene – his severed penis becoming a sentient being that embarks on a psychosexual killing spree.
Also sparking good word of mouth are Oan Hostench’s Spanish title ”Read the Bones,” with a sensational Proof of Concept teaser, absurdist delivery boy psychological thriller “GRIND” and Ajuan Isaac-George’s “Duppy,” exploring less frequented genre terrain in Jamaica.
Presented by Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival and Cannes Marché du Film, the Frontières Platform is made up of two sections – Proof of Concept for projects and a Buyers Showcase focusing on titles in post-production.
It received an all-time record of 124 submissions this year, compared to close to 100 in 2025 and 82 in 2024, Annick Mahnert, Frontières executive director, told Variety.
“We’re finally in a place where even seasoned producers will come to us to find partners because they know that have a community that is serious about genre and they need the contacts,” Mahnert said. “We’re now receiving so many submissions from people we’ve never heard of, from India, Malaysia, South America, Japan and Taiwan,” she added.
The selection features multiple new voices, Mahnert noted. “Astrolatry,” “The Wrath,” “Read the Bones,” “Balloon”and “Duppy” are indeed first-time fiction features.
The Platform also highlights the latest features by a wave of young fast emerging genre auteurs. Two cases in point are “Aulken,” from Dutch director Didier Konings whose fest hit “Witte Weever” bows on Shudder in early May and ”You’ve Been Chosen,” from Norway’s Viljar Bøe, who broke out with “Good Boy” (“creepy as hell,” said one reviewer) and impressed with body horror “Above the Knee,” at Cannes 2024 Frontières Platform.
“Spiral” marks Kourtney Roy’s follow-up to well-received SXSW premiere “Kryptic,” “a beautiful meditation of gender, time, and slime. Lots of slime,”announced Dread Central. “‘Spiral’s’ protagonist Kat embodies what I jokingly refer to as the “un-self”—a repressed, appalling version of me I imagine lurking somewhere inside, threatening to emerge,” Roy told Variety.
Six of the 13 titles explore “folk horror” – “Queen of Malacca,” “The Wrath,” “Aulken,” ”Balloon,” Duppy,”Magai Gami.”
“Rooted in Japan’s unique religious iconography, the Magai-gami design blends the sacred and the grotesque to create a new form of creature horror aimed at global audiences,” director Norihiro Niwatsukino told Variety.
“Despite Jamaica’s profound worldwide cultural influence, its folklore is rarely explored through a cinematic horror lens,” said “Duppy” director Ajuan Isaac-George.
“I guess people are no longer afraid of talking about the demons or creatures that are part of their own culture, something that maybe in the past would have laughed at as stupid but now using that to tell stories to actually enlighten people all around the world,” Mahnert observed.
Yet filmmakers come in at their seminal traditional myths in richly different kinds of films and with hugely different intentions: The young protagonists of “Aulken” and “Guppy” learn to embrace the supposedly monstrous; in contrast, the fantasy world belief systems of “Queen of Malacca” can be a source of female subjugation.
Equally, “many titles throw a spotlight on our societies and on human behaviour, turning that into horror or playing with the theme,” said Mahnert.
Whether in “The Glorious Dead’s” sense of global dislocation or “You’ve Been Chosen” introduction to the mechanics of fascism, titles tap into the contemporary Zeitgeist.
This year’s Cannes Frontières Platform also features a heartfelt, and informative doc-feature, charting how Jackie Chan cult movie “The Cyprus Tigers” and his “Armour of God” shot in Cyprus & Croatia respectively. It traces an irony. Hong Kong martial arts boomed in the early ‘80s at the same time as VHS took off, giving them an international platform but sparking bootleg piracy, which withered the martial arts boom.
A closer look at this year’s Frontières Platform titles:
BUYERS SHOWCASE
“Astrolatry,” (David Gordon, U.S.)
Gordon’s feature debut, part psychological thriller, part creature horror and a “modern reimagining of ‘Maniac,’ directed by Ken Russell,” said Gordon, “Astrolatry” “seeks to satirize the ‘nice guy’ trope and toxic masculinity by positioning them as parallel phenomena both leading to the objectification of others,” said Gordon, a DP on 14 features, including 2025 Shudder Original “825 Forest Road.” Ethan Daniel Corbett (“Faces”) plays Elliot.
“GRIND,” (Peter Collins Campbell, U.S.)
Determined to make all his rent in 24 hours, a hustle-culture obsessed food delivery biker has a cosmically terrible night in Manhattan. Starring Jack Haven, Janeane Garofalo, Ivy Wolk, Hari Nef, El-P, among many others. “We wanted to make a movie as irreverent to the rules of what modern movies need to be as the ones we grew up with,” said Collins Campbell. Matty Mattheson’s first feature at production company banner, Super Athletic Co.
Grind
“Queen of Malacca,” (Angga Dwimas Sasongko, Indonesia)
A Neo Noir action crime thriller with occult beats, with Claresta Taufan, star of Busan winner “On Your Lap” playing Rafah, who transforms from victim to perpetrator, daring to rewrite fate in a world where criminal empires are built on blood, fear and ancient prophecy. Set in an urban Southeast Asia, its underworld and spiritual subculture, a “bold cinematic journey that fuses Southeast Asian mysticism with groundbreaking action and deeply human drama,” Sasongo told Variety.
“The Glorious Dead,” (John Adams, Toby Poser, U.S.)
A small town sheriff (Poser) wakes to find the world she believed in no longer exists. A resonant, polished nerve-tensing feature, if excerpts are anything to go by. “With practical effects in the form of meaty skin-monsters and the fetid holes from which they crawl, this is a story about hell on earth, taking The Word at its very word; told through one very, very bad day in the life of small-town Americana,” said Toby Poser and John Adams, known and admired for “Hellbender” and “Where the Devil Roams,” among a building canon
“Tracking the Cyprus Tigers,” (Andreas Kyriakou, Cyprus, Croatia)
Interviewing with the makers of Jackie Chan’s Cyprus-shot “The Cyprus Tigers” and “Armour of God,” lensed in Croatia, such as Hong Kong’s Sammo Hung, the film “reveals a forgotten network of cinematic exchange driven by the video store boom rather than studios,” says lead producer Stavros Papageorgiou. It “captures that analog era of discovery, where stories crossed borders in the most unexpected ways and left a lasting imprint on a generation of filmmakers like myself,” said Kyriakou.
“The Wrath,” (Shayne Putzlocher, Canada)
When Devyn brings her new husband, Ben, to Koh Samui to film a documentary, the Thai folk-legend they’ve come to feature becomes their horrific reality. Fronted by Tatum Jennings (“The Last Time”), directed by reputed producer Putzlocher. “Beneath its supernatural tension, ‘The Wrath’ is ultimately a devastating love story. One that explores how deeply love can anchor us, and how violently it can unravel us when threatened,” he told Variety.
PROOF OF CONCEPT
“Aulken,” (Didier Konings, Netherlands)
From Konings, a concept artist on “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” and the team behind “Witte Wieven.” “The Netherlands holds a wealth of folklore largely unexplored in cinema. Set in famine-stricken medieval Holland, ‘Aulken’ centers on shapeshifters. At its thematic core, the film explores our fear of the other. What if the perceived threat begins to resemble us? What if the monster is not as inhuman as we believe?” said producer Monique van Kessel at Make Way Film.
“Baldoon,” (Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton, Canada)
From Phillips and Templeton who appeared in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” and “The Handsmaid’s Tale.” 1829. John and Nancy McDonald’s farm is haunted by a mysterious force – putting their lives and sanity on the line. A “horror comedy, inspired by a 19th century Canadian ghost story,” said Templeton. “What interested us is not just the haunting but the women at the story’s center, how a community can slowly turn someone into a legend, or, villain,” added producer Nancy Morski.
“Duppy,” (Ajuan Isaac-George, U.K., Jamaica)
Left with her grandparents in the Jamaican countryside, a lonely 12-year-old girl summons a vengeful spirit to take revenge against her strict grandmother, unknowingly forming an unbreakable pact with a shapeshifting demon. Shown at Film London’s Production Finance Market in 2025. “It’s a cinematic, visceral, character-driven horror where a child’s need for control unleashes something far more terrifying,” commented Ajuan Isaac-George. Produced by U.K.-based My Accomplice in co-production with Jamaica’s Mental Telepathy.
“Magai Gami,” (Norihiro Niwatsukino, Japan)
Having impacted the indie world with out-there period erotic fantasy “Suffering of Ninko,” a Rotterdam player, Niwatsukino now tackles J-horror in an expansion of the short which screened at Sitges, Fantasia and Fantasporto, among some 10 festivals, being described as “eerie and effective” by Fantasia. A survival creature feature thriller set in a cursed forest ruled by false gods called Magai-gami, monsters that disguise themselves as deities to deceive and devour humans, Niwatsukino explained. Produced and sold by Tokyo’s ColorBird.
“Read the Bones,” (Oan Hostench, Spain)
After an accident, a young aspiring model spirals into delusion and revenge, reinventing herself as a disfigured cult-like icon, until brutal retribution turns her into a macabre work of art more powerful in death than she ever was in life. “An immersion into inherited violence, into origin as destiny, and identity as a mask. It doesn’t unfold gently. It tightens, it lingers, it demands,” said Hostench. Produced by Alplano Films, set up by “The Blue Star” producer Coque Serrano, Edurne San José Eraso and Juan Malcolm.
“Spiral,” (Kourtney Roy, Canada.)
Potentially, like “Kryptic,” an intelligent gore-strewn take on a memorable world. The logline: “In the City of Light, young artist Kat spirals into a pit of madness and mayhem, leaving a trail of bloody carnage through the elite art world whose recognition she so desperately craves. A wickedly satirical fable about art, ego, and the monsters that lurk in the murky depths of us all.” Backed in development by Telefilm Canada and produced like “Kryptic” by Goodbye Productions’ Amber Ripley.
“You’ve Been Chosen,” (ViljarBøe, Norway)
When Fredrik begins receiving anonymous letters with instructions that reward obedience and punish resistance, he is drawn into a brutal system that challenges both his free will and his sense of responsibility. After “Above the Knee, this is a brutal “high-concept psychological thriller about how far you’re willing to go to belong,” says Bøe, and an allegory of the recruitment mechanisms of fascism. Produced by Sleazemania!
‘You’ve Been Chosen’
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