Cold Souls - Trailer

Is your soul weighing you down? Paul Giamatti has found a solution! In the surreal comedy Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays an actor named… Paul Giamatti. Stumbling upon an article in The New Yorker about a high-tech company that extracts, deep-freezes and stores people’s souls, Paul very well might have found the key to happiness for which he’s been searching. But, complications arise when he is the unfortunate victim of “soul-trafficking.” Giamatti’s journey takes him all the way to Russia in hopes of retrieving his stolen soul from an ambitious but talentless soap-opera actress. Balancing a tightrope between deadpan humor & pathos, and reality & fantasy, Cold Souls is a true soul searching comedy. Also starring David Strathairn, Dana Korzun and Emily Watson.

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Cold Souls - Cool poster for Giamatti's latest film

It has been a while since I last posted anything on this film (check out some clips from the film), but now we have this excellent poster.

Paralyzed with anxiety over an upcoming role, Paul Giamatti stumbles upon a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by deep-freezing souls. Giamatti enlists their services, intending to reinstate his soul once he survives the performance. But complications ensue when a soul-trafficking mule borrows Giamatti's stored soul for an ambitious, but unfortunately talentless, soap-opera actress.

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Cold Souls - Paul Giamatti in action

Rehearsing to play Uncle Vanya on a New York stage, Paul Giamatti feels that his emotional life is getting in the way of his performance. After consulting with the affable Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn), he decides to try an experimental service called “Soul Storage,” which provides relief from man’s existential burden through the extraction (and cold storage) of the soul. Yet the side effects – he’s now bizarrely buoyant and blithely callous – send him back to “rent” the soul of a Russian poet, salvaging his Vanya but leading to disturbing visions. Plans to reclaim his soul are dashed when a mysterious, soul-trafficking Russian “mule” (Korzun) steals Giamatti's stored soul for an ambitious, but talentless, soap-opera actress (Winnick) in St. Petersburg. Suddenly thrust into the middle of a twisted black market of international soul trafficking, the actor journeys halfway around the world to reclaim what he’d so readily given away.

An indelible story that approaches deep philosophical questions with a light, beguiling touch, writer-director Sophie Barthes’s wise and funny first feature evokes everything from Woody Allen’s SLEEPER to the novels of Nikolai Gogol. Featuring a hilarious and heartbreaking performance by the always-game Giamatti and memorable turns by an all-star cast, COLD SOULS is a poetic, entertaining, and confidently ambitious piece of filmmaking.

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Cold Souls - Paul Giamatti has his soul extracted. ...with hilarious consequences!

The Samuel Goldwyn Company has acquired the US distribution rights to Cold Souls. The film is written and directed by Sophie Barthes and stars Paul Giamatti as himself.
In the film, Giamatti plays an actor that during an existential crisis decides to explore "soul extraction" as a relief from the burdens of daily life.
Sundance programmer Caroline Libresco says of Cold Souls: "Sophie Barthes’s debut feature is strikingly original, not only for its haunting concept but for its poetic execution. Inspired production design and lyrical cinematography create a melancholic, heightened world. Perfectly cast, Giamatti and a gifted ensemble maneuver seamlessly through shifting ontological landscapes without ever betraying the surrealism. With this dazzling accomplishment, Barthes establishes herself as an auteur to reckon with."



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