Art house stalwart Janus Films won the second UniFrance Distribution Award for its treatment of Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia, which raised $11,646 at this year’s UniFrance Rendezvous in Paris.
The darkly comic thriller, which premiered in Cannes in 2024, turned heads at the fall film festivals and was well-received in its awards campaign, earning it a spot on France’s four-film shortlist for the international feature film Oscar. Although it ultimately fell short of an Oscar, Misericordia more than made up for it with critical acclaim, winning the Louis-Deluc Award, Cahiers du Cinema’s Best Picture of the Year award, and enthusiastic praise from John Waters, who described it as “an impossibly perverse thriller…that stunned audiences with its sexual development and conclusion.”
When Janus was preparing to release the film in U.S. theaters last March, the distributor pinpointed what made Waters exclaim, “Wow! This is out of line!”
Poster designer Maks Bereski came up with the evocative key art.
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Janus Films’ Benjamin Crossley-Mara said: “It would have been easy to market it as a straight thriller or romance, but we intentionally stayed close to the original tone of the film.” “This is a subtle mystery with humor, a really creepy atmosphere, and a sense that something is wrong.”
To reflect the film’s elegance, irreverence, and quirky, lyrical mood, Janus commissioned key art from poster designer Max Beleschi (aka Plakyat) and used one core image as the basis for the multimedia push. “In today’s environment, images need to work everywhere, from a lightbox in a theater to a 4×5 post on Instagram,” Crossley-Marra explains. “That artwork was very popular online and we adapted it to a variety of platforms.”
The distributor also developed a playful social media strategy that capitalized on the film’s visual textures and motifs, including an interactive map of premiere locations, each represented by a different mushroom. “Audiences can find their own city, see their own mushrooms, and come to a screening with Alan in attendance,” Crossley-Mara added. “It turned out to be a fun and effective campaign.”
Janus will next leverage cross-platform synergies for the upcoming releases of Hrinul Parmason’s The Love That Remains, Sergei Loznitsa’s The Two Prosecutors, and Carla Simon’s Romelia, spotlighting the director and his early films on the Criterion Channel, and also driving interest in theaters.
“We’re always looking for ways to reach new audiences,” says Crossley Mara, who oversees Janus’ social media. “Interestingly, younger audiences are going to theaters more than older generations. They’re looking for a theatrical experience, and they’re more focused on the experience in general. And a movie like ‘Misericordia’ is certainly an experience.”
