When we meet Julia (Julie Ledru), this feral loner demonstrates her predatory nature by conning a hapless seller out of his motorcycle. But when she crashes a local “rodeo”—a high-octane, higher testosterone underground motocross circuit where brash bikers one-up one another—it’s apparent that she’ll need to raise her game all the more. After employing her guile to tenuously insinuate herself in this cut-throat clique, she must deliver something showstopping if she’s to stick around. As it so happens, she has an idea for an audacious heist.
Ledru brings a gunslinger’s bearing to Lola Quivoron’s adrenaline-charged film, which is shot in Western-indebted CinemaScope by Raphaël Vandenbussche. Drawing from childhood memories of illicit motocross competitions in her Paris suburb, Quivoron captures both the exhilaration and peril associated with these machines when their full power is unleashed. And while Rodeo boasts tour-de-force stuntwork, its character dynamics are equally transfixing: Julia has entered a world in which every encounter is as perilous as hairpin turn.
“Coup de coeur” Prize, Cannes 2022 (Un Certain Regard)
Q&A Oct 4 & Oct 6
Supported by
Media Partner
Lola Quivoron
Julie Ledru, Yanis Lafki, Antonia Buresi, Cody Schroeder, Louis Sotton, Junior Correia
France
2022
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Vivaldi and Me
Venice, 1716. Composer Antonio Vivaldi teaches at an orphanage for abandoned girls, and establishes a deep rapport with violinist Cecelia — but their collaboration is threatened by her impending arranged marriage.
Rear Window
James Stewart is the man who sees too much. "Jeff" Jeffries is a sports photographer waylaid by a broken leg, doomed to spend the summer in a wheelchair in his New York apartment. That's how he comes to witness a murder in the dead of night (or does he?).
Rose of Nevada
This disconcerting film from the director of Bait and Enys Men feels like a message from another era: two men sign on to a Cornish fishing trawler, but when they return to port they are welcomed into the community 30 years before they left...
To Die For
Buck Henry (The Graduate) wrote this acidic black comedy about a ruthless weather girl on the make (Nicole Kidman in her breakout role). A young Joaquin Phoenix is the dim teen she seduces on her way to achieving stardom.
Camp
Reeling from two devastating tragedies, Emily (Zola Grimmer) takes refuge at a summer camp for troubled youth, where she has been offered a position as counsellor. She finds friendship, but also something more unexpected, something truly troubling...
Credits
Producer
Charles Gillibert
Screenwriter
Lola Quivoron, Antonia Buresi
Cinematography
Raphaël Vandenbussche
Editor
Rafael Torres Calderon
Production Design
Gabrielle Desjean
Original Music
Kelman Duran

