All articles tagged with #her private hell
At Cannes, Sophie Thatcher details sleepless nights promoting Her Private Hell, the intense, mentor-like bond with Nicolas Winding Refn, and how the film’s stylized, studio-driven world pushed her to improvise and seek more European directing projects, like Wim Wenders.
Nicolas Winding Refn returns to feature filmmaking with Her Private Hell, a visually lavish Cannes premiere presented out of competition. The film blends a neon-lit hotel setting, a demonic Leather Man, and a Tokyo sequence to homage giallo and Brian De Palma, all wrapped in Refn’s signature elevated-genre sensibility. While the production design and cinematography are arresting, the narrative often feels overindulgent and contrived, making the experience punishingly slow for non–diehard fans. The 1 hour 49 minute film marks a ten-year gap since his last feature and reinforces Refn’s status as a polarizing auteur whose obsession with style can outpace storytelling.
Nicolas Winding Refn cried at Cannes as he recounted a heart surgery in which he was dead for more than 20 minutes, describing it as a second chance and vowing to expand horizons for kids. The director’s latest film, Her Private Hell, received a 12-minute standing ovation at its world premiere and will open July 24 via Neon.
Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn broke down at Cannes while discussing his near-death experience: he was told he had died for about 25 minutes due to a leaking heart, underwent emergency surgery two weeks later, and joked that a surgeon like Tom Cruise could “fix me with his hands” and revive me with electricity. He said the life-altering event gave him a renewed purpose and a chance to start over as his new film Her Private Hell premiered at Cannes to a seven-minute ovation, marking his return to feature directing after a decade.
Nicolas Winding Refn returns to cinema with Her Private Hell at Cannes (out of competition), a surreal, visually lush experience that emphasizes mood and Pino Donaggio’s emotive score over traditional storytelling. Set in a dreamlike, neon-lit megacity, the film follows Elle (Sophie Thatcher) as a high-stakes film shoot spirals into mysticism, murder, and the Leather Man, with Private K (Charles Melton) appearing like a spectral avenger. Echoing Bergman’s Persona and 2001-era imagery, the movie is a bold, polarizing blend of style and ambiguity that marks Refn’s first feature since Neon Demon and his near-fatal heart condition, signaling a daring, if divisive, new direction for his work.
Nicolas Winding Refn returns to Cannes with Her Private Hell, a surreal, enigmatic horror-thriller set in a misty, futuristic city. The film follows an actress (Elle) navigating offscreen drama, a volatile cast, and a brutal shoot (reported 85 takes for a single scene) as co-stars Havana Rose Liu and Kristine Froseth figure into a tense dynamic, with Leather Man stalking the city. Refn quotes a near-death experience as reigniting his creative drive for the project.
Nicolas Winding Refn unveiled Her Private Hell at Cannes to a seven-minute standing ovation despite it premiering out of competition; led by Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton, the provocative thriller follows a tortured star and a vengeance-seeking Army private as Refn used the moment to reflect on cinema’s power after a near-death experience, with Neon planning a July 24 U.S. release.
At Cannes, Nicolas Winding Refn's psychedelic sci‑fi drama Her Private Hell earned a 12‑minute standing ovation at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the second-longest of the night; the film, out of competition, stars Sophie Thatcher, Havana Rose Liu and Charles Melton. Refn, who recently survived heart surgery, used his speech to champion cinema as a unifying force and paid a nod to composer Pino Donaggio, as Neon sets a July 24 U.S. release date.
Nicolas Winding Refn makes a high-profile return to cinema with a neon-drenched teaser for Her Private Hell, starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton. Premiering out of competition at Cannes, the plot follows a troubled young woman and an American GI as they navigate a mist-enshrouded metropolis in a venture that roams between rescue and hellish peril; Neon will release the film in theaters on July 24, 2026.