BORDER Trailer Teases A Profoundly Strange Mystery

Tim League, founder and CEO of Birth.Movies.Death.’s parent company Alamo Drafthouse, is a co-founder of NEON.

Ali Abassi’s Border won the Un Certain Regard prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and subsequently made it to TIFF and Fantastic Fest. Based on a short story from Let The Right One In’s John Ajvide Lindqvist, it’s Sweden’s submission to this year’s Academy Awards. Suffice it to say, it's got pedigree, and people like it. The official synopsis is as weirdly murky as it is wildly ambitious:

Tina (Eva Melander) is a border guard who has the ability to smell human emotions and catch smugglers. When she comes across a mysterious man with a smell that confounds her detection, she is forced to confront hugely disturbing insights about herself and humankind.

Some weird shit, basically. Today, the film’s first US trailer dropped from distributor NEON, and it’s full of odd, melancholy imagery:

Strange, disfigured protagonists in love? Hints of a profound and idiosyncratic mystery? A wide range of emotions on display? That’s my shit, right there. Nearly everyone who’s seen Border has come away with raving positivity for its bizarre characterisation and unpredictable story. At this point I’m downright furious that I haven’t seen this movie.

Border goes into limited US release on October 26th. I hope and pray it comes up to Canada, too, or I’ll have to invade the United States. I think I can take ‘em.