The Brand New Testament

Le Tout Nouveau Testament, known in English as The Brand New Testament, is a 2015 fantasy black comedy directed by Jaco Van Dormael and co-written with Thomas Gunzig, a co-production of Belgium, France and Luxembourg. It imagines God as a petty, bad-tempered man living in an ordinary Brussels apartment with his subdued wife and their young daughter Ea, running human lives from his computer. Fed up with her father's cruelty, Ea hacks into the machine and sends every person on Earth a message revealing the exact date of their death, throwing the world into turmoil. She then escapes home and wanders the city in search of six apostles of her own, gathering them among lonely misfits so she can write a brand new testament. The cast is led by Pili Groyne, Benoît Poelvoorde, Yolande Moreau, François Damiens and Catherine Deneuve. Screened in the Directors' Fortnight at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, the film won four Magritte Awards, including Best Film and Best Director, and was Belgium's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.