Paul Schrader Announces ‘The Basics of Philosophy,’ Updates on ‘Non Compos Mentis’

Paul Schrader has a busy few months ahead as he shares an update on two upcoming films.

The Oscar-nominated director revealed that he’s currently developing the new feature, The Basics of Philosophy, as he prepares to begin filming Non Compos Mentis (Latin for “an unsound mind”) in November.

He told Screen Daily that he’s completed an outline and plans to finish a draft in the next three months for The Basics of Philosophy, which is about “an intellectual university philosophy professor,” made in the style of his ‘Man in a Room’ spiritual trilogy, First Reformed (2017), The Card Counter (2021), and Master Gardener (2022).

“I’ve got to do a very quick rewrite on [Compos],” said Schrader. “I’m hoping before November to write the new one and have another bullet in the gun ready to go.”

Schrader previously announced Non Compos Mentis at Cannes Film Festival in May. He described it as a noir film centered around sexual obsession, noting, “I’ve written a noir, as a kind of a sexual obsession, called Non Compos Mentis about the stupid things men do for love.” Despite still being in the casting phase, the project has already secured the majority of its funding.

The interview came as Schrader promoted his latest movie Oh, Canada at the Sarajevo Film Festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reuniting him with American Gigolo (1980) star Richard Gere, the movie also stars Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, Victoria Hill, Penelope Mitchell, Kristine Froseth, and Zach Shaffer.

Oh, Canada follows a terminally ill writer and filmmaker (Gere in present, Elordi in flashbacks) who agrees to have his final testament filmed by documentarians Malcolm (Imperioli) and Diana (Hill), years after he fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War draft.

The movie, which was filmed last year with a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, has since been acquired by Kino Lorber for a December release.