This Director Calls His New Wealthy Family Drama a Horrible Poison, and Means It as a Compliment

Director Karim Ainouz built his new film Rosebush Pruning around a premise he is not shy about calling ugly. The story follows a wealthy white family in Catalonia, Spain, loosely adapted from Marco Bellocchio's 1965 film Fists in the Pocket, and Ainouz has described the combination driving the family's dysfunction bluntly, calling whiteness, privilege, and wealth together an exponential recipe for a really horrible poison.

The cast carrying that premise includes Callum Turner, Elle Fanning, Lukas Gage, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts, and Pamela Anderson. The film screened in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2026 and has been in theaters since.

Rosebush Pruning is the third film in what has effectively become a trilogy for Ainouz examining toxic male characters, following Firebrand in 2023 and Motel Destino in 2024. Each film has approached the subject differently, and this one leans hardest into discomfort as a deliberate choice rather than a side effect.

Ainouz is upfront that the approach carries real risk. It's very risky, because it's very destabilizing, he has said, while also insisting the film is meant to entertain rather than simply unsettle. He has called making it the most exciting ride he's ever had making a movie, built on non-linear storytelling that explores the unconscious rather than following a conventional plot structure, something he describes as a constant negotiation at every frame.

That tension, between a film built to destabilize its audience and a director who wants them to enjoy the ride anyway, is the exact bet Rosebush Pruning is making. Whether that combination works is now up to whoever walks into a theater expecting one and getting the other.