Brandon Cronenberg

Biography

Brandon Cronenberg (born January 10, 1980, in Toronto) is a Canadian director and screenwriter, the son of filmmaker David Cronenberg. He is known for science fiction and body horror, a niche in which he has built a small but distinctive body of work.

He studied film at Toronto Metropolitan University, although as a young man he had considered becoming a writer, painter or musician, and came to see cinema as a way of combining those interests. Before his first feature he directed the short Broken Tulips (2008), about people who pay to be injected with viruses taken from celebrities. His debut feature, Antiviral (2012), premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes; afterwards he trimmed nearly six minutes from the cut to tighten its pace. His second film, Possessor (2020), starring Christopher Abbott, Andrea Riseborough and Sean Bean, premiered at Sundance and won prizes at Sitges. With Infinity Pool (2023), featuring Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth, he moved toward luxury-travel satire and thriller territory.

His reputation rests on a personal approach to the body, technology and identity that engages with his father's legacy without imitating it. Announced projects include a television adaptation of J. G. Ballard's novel Super-Cannes and a science fiction feature titled Dragon.

Key films

• Antiviral (2012): his feature debut and first exploration of infection as a commodity.
• Possessor (2020): science fiction thriller about an agent who inhabits other people's bodies, a film that won recognition at Sitges.
• Infinity Pool (2023): satire of luxury tourism and impunity, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth.
• Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You (2019): short shown in Cannes' Critics' Week, the visual source for Possessor.