Out of competition films
The Boy
The Boy
by William Brent Bell – USA, 2016
(97', Original with subtitles)
Greta, a young woman from Montana, escapes an abusive relationship by getting a temporary job as a nanny for the British Heelshire family. Upon arrival to the United Kingdom and the Heelshire residence, Greta introduces herself to Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire before meeting the elderly couple's young son, Brahms.
To Greta's surprise and amusement, Brahms is a porcelain doll, treated like a living child by his "parents."
William Brent Bell
An American filmmaker, William Brent Bell toiled his way up from the cinematic trenches to become a horror director. During the mid-1990s, Bell broke into the industry as a production assistant, working on a number of low-budget films, including the 1995 thriller Payback, starring C. Thomas Howell and Joan Severance, and The Nature of the Beast, a horror outing featuring B-movie fixtures Lance Henriksen and Eric Roberts. Following his contributions to another Howell straight-to-video film, Suspect Device, Bell had a stint as production coordinator on the erotica series Women: Stories of Passion, and began working as a second assistant director. He served in this capacity on the slasher/fantasy flick Pinocchio's Revenge and moved to less genre-oriented fare with his work on Miguel Arteta's indie dramedy Star Maps. Eager to establish himself as a filmmaker, he wrote, directed and produced the comedy Sparkle and Charm, though it received little attention. After working on projects that weren't brought to fruition, Bell eventually penned and helmed the overlooked 2006 horror film Stay Alive, a production that helped him to prepare for his 2012 follow-up, The Devil Inside.