The Beasts

The Beasts (Galician: As bestas) is a 2022 thriller film directed and produced by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, who wrote the screenplay with Isabel Peña. A co-production between Spain and France, it features Spanish, French, and Galician dialogue. It stars Denis Ménochet, Marina Foïs, Luis Zahera, Diego Anido, and Marie Colomb. The film is loosely inspired by real events involving a Dutch couple in Santoalla, a semi-abandoned hamlet of the Galician municipality of Petín, from 2010 to 2014. It follows a married French couple (Ménochet and Foïs) settled in the Galician countryside, exploring issues of xenophobia and escalating hostility between neighbors buoyed by a conflict vis-à-vis a wind farm project, arriving at a point of no return. The film made its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on 26 May 2022, with a festival run that also included screenings in San Sebastián, Tokyo and Chicago. It was released theatrically in France on 20 July 2022 and in Spain on 11 November 2022. The Beasts earned a leading 17 nominations (including five for acting) at the 37th Goya Awards and won nine, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor for Ménochet, and Best Supporting Actor for Zahera. It also won the César Award for Best Foreign Film.