“The Shrouds”, interview with director David Cronenberg

April 3, 2025

David Cronenberg: “The mantra in my films is Body is reality, we are our bodies so I don’t believe in life after death and my characters think the same”

“The Shrouds”, interview with director David Cronenberg Chiara Nicoletti

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Almost an year has passed since David Cronenberg premiered “The Shrouds” in the Cannes Film Festival’s competition.

The film is finally coming out in Italian Movie theaters, distributed by Europictures, on April 3rd, 2025.

The visionary director, inventor of the body horror genre, couldn’t make it to Italy to present the film but joined us in a deep conversation about the themes of his film.

The film, starring Vincent Cassel in the role of Karsh and Diane Kruger continues Cronenberg’s exploration of the boundaries between technology, body, and mind, merging influences from his most extreme early cinema with a mature and conscious reflection on pain and memory, inspired by an autobiographical event.

In his director’s notes, Cronenberg writes: “ I wrote this film while coping with the pain of losing my wife, who passed away seven years ago. For me, it was an exploration—not just a technical exercise, but also an emotional one. In a way, the Shrouds my protagonist invented are cinematic devices. They create their own cinema: a post-mortem cinema, a cinema of decay. Before writing the screenplay, I was aware that the shrouds had a cinematic quality, creating a kind of strange ‘cinema of the grave,’ a ‘cemetery cinema.’ In The Shrouds, it is suggested that Karsh realizes that his creation involves a form of cinematic technology—something rich and complex”.

Plot

Karsh, 50, is a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech, revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated. Karsh sets out to track down the perpetrators.

Written by: Chiara Nicoletti

Diane Kruger

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David Cronenberg

Film

The Shrouds

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CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 27: Alice Rohrwacher attends the "La Chimera" photocall at the 76th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 27, 2023 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

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