French star in town to face ghostly onscreen horror

Advertisement

Advertise with us

A French pop superstar is in Winnipeg, but she’s not here for a concert.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2016 (3599 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A French pop superstar is in Winnipeg, but she’s not here for a concert.

Mylène Farmer, who was born in Pierrefonds, Que., in 1961 before moving to France as a child, became a recording star in France in the 1980s and sold more than 30 million records with music that pushed the envelope, covering themes such as lesbianism, violence and religious impertinence.

When it came to sexually adventurous content, Farmer’s videos in the 1980s and ’90s made a practiced provocateur such as Madonna look like Debbie Gibson.

Amy Sussman / Invision files
Sting and Mylene Farmer pose for a portrait at MSR Studios in New York in 2015.
Amy Sussman / Invision files Sting and Mylene Farmer pose for a portrait at MSR Studios in New York in 2015.

But Farmer’s first love has always been acting. (At the beginning of her career, she reportedly took the name “Farmer” in tribute to tragic Hollywood star Frances Farmer.) She comes to Winnipeg to act in the horror film Incident in a Ghost Land for French director Pascal Laugier, whose main claim to fame is the harrowing Quebec-lensed horror film Martyrs.

Farmer stars as Colleen, a mother who inherits a house from her aunt, but when she and her two young daughters arrive, they are confronted by murderous intruders. Sixteen years later, the two adult daughters, whose pronounced personality differences were exacerbated by the trauma, return to the house to encounter further disturbing events.

The two grown daughters will be played by Crystal Reed (Teen Wolf) and Canadian actress Anastasia Phillips (of the TV series Bomb Girls). The younger versions of the daughters are played by Emilia Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) and Taylor Hickson (Deadpool).

Writer-director Laugier made waves in the horror genre with the 2008 thriller Martyrs, which was also about two young women caught in a violent confrontation, connected to a childhood trauma suffered by one of the women.

The film was hailed as an example of the New French Extremity movement with Laugier earning a place alongside other taboo-breaking French filmmakers, including Alexandre Aja (High Tension), Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl) and Gaspar Noé (Irreversible).

Incident in a Ghost Land, a France/Canada co-production, started principal photography Friday and continues for seven weeks until mid-December, shooting in Winnipeg and the town of Balmoral, 50 kilometres north of the city. The film is produced by the French company 5656 Films, Highwire Pictures and Winnipeg company Inferno Pictures.

It’s produced by Clément Miserez and Jean-Charles Levy, (who also produced the 2011 Winnipeg-lensed thriller Faces in the Crowd with Milla Jovovich), along with Scott Kennedy and Ian Dimerman.

Dimerman, of Winnipeg’s Inferno Pictures, hails the film as a true, co-operative Canada/France co-production and says it should be ready for theatrical release in the latter half of 2017.

Asked if the film will be as extreme in content as Martyrs, Dimerman would only say: “You’ll have to come to the theatre to find out.”

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing

Randall King

Randall King
Writer

Randall King writes about film for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Controlling pace of response path to success

Tim Kist 5 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

WITH the recent collapse of Canada-U.S. trade talks, the economic, political and social changes are coming at business leaders on a daily basis.

While you cannot control the pace of these changes, you can control the pace of response and timing of actions your organization takes. This is a time for thoughtful analysis and careful action, not chasing the latest trends.

Artificial intelligence, for example, can write articles, create images, draft emails and perform seemingly countless other tasks. But is this new tool solving a current business problem?

Successful companies know they must develop a strategy before launching any tactics. Otherwise, the strategy is based on “hope” — and we all know hope is not a strategy.

‘Quite a journey’: dozens move into transitional housing downtown

Carol Sanders 4 minute read Preview

‘Quite a journey’: dozens move into transitional housing downtown

Carol Sanders 4 minute read Friday, Sep. 4, 2026

Dozens of residents have moved into transitional housing units in a former university building in downtown Winnipeg.

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said 42 residents have moved into suites on the third and fourth floors of a seven-storey building previously owned by Providence University College and Theological Seminary. There will be space for as many as 118 people who were in encampments or otherwise homeless.

The remaining units under renovation are expected to be ready and occupied in the coming weeks, Smith said.

“This has been two years in the making,” the minister said at a media event with residents, staff, neighbours and supporters. The building cost the province $24.4 million to purchase and renovate.

Read
Friday, Sep. 4, 2026

Woman who saved child, father from Red River uncomfortable with hero label

Scott Billeck 5 minute read Preview

Woman who saved child, father from Red River uncomfortable with hero label

Scott Billeck 5 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 2, 2026

A Winnipeg woman who’s been hailed as a hero by police for saving a father and his young child from the Red River says she doesn’t feel like one.

“I’m a mom… and I would do it again,” said Jayclyn Morrissette, who was walking with her neighbour through St. John’s Park on Aug. 24 when they spotted a young girl flailing in the nearby river. “I was meant to be there and that was supposed to happen.”

Morrissette, who spoke to the Free Press Wednesday after police released details about the rescue, said she and her neighbour began looking for the child’s parents and found them at the nearby playground searching for her.

Morrissette waved them over. The father, who she said could not swim, jumped into the river first and immediately began to sink.

Read
Wednesday, Sep. 2, 2026

Mayoral candidate Gillingham vows building boom; Vogiatzakis, Woodstock promise improved safety

Joyanne Pursaga 5 minute read Preview

Mayoral candidate Gillingham vows building boom; Vogiatzakis, Woodstock promise improved safety

Joyanne Pursaga 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 4, 2026

Scott Gillingham promised several new steps to help get more homes and businesses built in Winnipeg Friday, if re-elected as mayor, amid other pledges from his competition.

Read
Friday, Sep. 4, 2026

Dynacare labs quickly reach capacity ahead of strike

Nicole Buffie 5 minute read Preview

Dynacare labs quickly reach capacity ahead of strike

Nicole Buffie 5 minute read Yesterday at 3:06 PM CDT

Patients were being turned away from several Dynacare locations Saturday morning as people packed the labs in hopes of getting their blood collection done before workers strike.

By 10:30 a.m. the lobby at the Dynacare at 1581 Regent Ave. was standing-room only and walk-up patients were being turned away as the wait time for those lucky enough to get in creeped past two hours.

One woman got in right before workers cut off walk-ins at 10 a.m. after travelling to two other locations.

“I was driving by at 7:15 this morning and there was already a line-up to the road, so I was like ‘nope, not going there’ so I went to the one on Sterling Lyon (Parkway) and it was closed, and then I went to the one at St. Vital Mall and there had a line zig-zagging all the way through the corridors so I gave up and came back,” said Joanna, who declined to give her last name.

Read
Yesterday at 3:06 PM CDT

Man who pleaded guilty to killing three cats dies before sentencing

Morgan Modjeski 3 minute read Preview

Man who pleaded guilty to killing three cats dies before sentencing

Morgan Modjeski 3 minute read Friday, Sep. 4, 2026

A Winnipeg man awaiting sentencing after admitting he strangled three cats to death and dumped two of their carcasses under a city bridge, has died, the Free Press has learned.

Randy Jensen, 25, pleaded guilty on May 13 to one count of wilfully causing injury or suffering to animals in connection to the 2024 killings.

He was scheduled to be sentenced in January.

“That’s not something that anybody wanted,” said Kristy Zamonsky, founder of Project Artemis Animal Advocates. “We were all hoping for justice through the courts.”

Read
Friday, Sep. 4, 2026