“Knife + Heart” director Yann Gonzalez has reunited with frequent collaborators Vanessa Paradis and M83 frontman Anthony Gonzalez — the filmmaker’s brother — on “I’ll Forget Your Name,” a gothic drama selected for this year’s Venice Gap-Financing Market.
Written and directed by Gonzalez, produced by Paris-based Pan Cinema, with music by the other Gonzalez, the film follows a 50-year-old instructor in a small village whose nightly cruising encounters take a darker turn when she falls for a young man who soon vanishes, sending her down a mysterious and nightmarish path.
Building on their experience with “Knife + Heart,” which premiered in competition at Cannes in 2018, Gonzalez crafted this new project specifically for Paradis. Kinology is handling global sales, with Chanel supplying key costumes.
“This comes from a more personal place and is less referential than my previous films,” Gonzalez explains. “It centers on a woman my own age, so it naturally touches on questions very close to me: desire at this stage of life, the ways we navigate intimacy and connection as we grow older, and the approach of mortality. In many ways, it’s a film about maturity.”
‘Knife + Heart’
Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival
Joining Paradis on screen are singer and funnyman Philippe Katerine (“Sink or Swim”), Italian rising star Filippo Scotti (“The Hand of God”), and trailblazing African-American filmmaker Fronza Woods (“Killing Time”), all performing in French. Production wrapped earlier this summer, ahead of a spring 2026 delivery.
Shot on 35mm stock by “Anatomy of a Fall” DP Simon Beaufils, the macabre thriller draws on Italian giallo for inspiration, with Gonzalez citing Francesco Barilli’s Mimsy Farmer-led “The Perfume of the Lady in Black” as a key reference.
“I wanted to make a mental labyrinth, a gothic story with hints of horror,” he says. “Some elements recall my previous work, but this time there’s no comedy. It’s a more serious film – though we had a lot of fun making it.”
The filmmaker has also teamed with artist and composer Alain Garcia Vergara on the decidedly adult-skewing anthology “Memory Slot” – which Gonzalez describes as a “queer porno mixtape.”
“Music drives everything on set,” he explains. “We’re taking eight tracks we love, from the 90s to today, and turning each into a short porno film, all held within a 70 minute feature. If we make it right, it could live in midnight screenings, a party where people dance and fuck to the music we love. A roadshow would be a dream. It’s not for traditional financiers; it sits between contemporary art and cinema, so we’ll need alternative funding. But that’s exactly the space I want to inhabit.”
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