Skip to main content
Red Rooms film image

Red Rooms

Les Chambres Rouges

This event has passed

North American Premiere

Every morning before dawn, Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) descends on a Montréal courthouse, eager to secure front row seats for the harrowing trial of Ludwig Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), a loner accused of the torture and murder of three teenage girls. Even more disturbingly, these atrocities were streamed online in the Dark Web’s “red rooms” to depraved audiences who could ante up the ungodly cryptocurrency admission. As Kelly-Anne’s obsession grows, her personal life and career unravel as she plunges into the seediest recesses of the Dark Web to secure a key piece of evidence.

With its exquisitely choreographed long takes, entrancing zooms, and surgical editing, there’s certainly the temptation to say this sees Pascal Plante (Nadia, Butterfly) going “full Fincher”. In actual fact, it finds him continuing his intrepid examinations of subcultures while employing even more exacting direction. A cautionary tale about evil’s allure, Red Rooms is unsettling and enthralling in equal measure.

A disturbingly brilliant psychological horror
Deadline

 

October 2 & 4: Q&A with director Pascal Plante & crew

Director
Cast

Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas, Natalie Tannous, Pierre Chagnon

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2023

Series

Panorama

Language

In French with English subtitles

Content Warning

Violence, Sexual Violence

18+

At International Village

19+

At The Rio

118 min
Action Drama

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Executive Producer

Tim Ringuette

Producer

Dominique Dussault

Screenwriter

Pascal Plante

Cinematography

Vincent Biron

Editor

Jonah Malak

Production Design

Laura Nhem

Original Music

Dominique Plante

Director

Pascal Plante headshot

Pascal Plante

Pascal Plante is a Montreal-based filmmaker. His narrative feature Nadia, Butterfly (2020) has been included in the official selection of the 73rd edition of Cannes Film Festival. After his graduation from Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Pascal co-founded the production company Nemesis Films, with which he directed numerous short films including Blast Beat (Slamdance 2019), Blue-Eyed Blonde (Best Canadian Short Film, VIFF 2015), and Nonna (Slamdance 2017). His first narrative feature, a punk romance entitled Fake Tattoos, competed at the Berlinale, in Generation 14plus, in 2018. Pascal considers himself like a cinephile that became a narrative filmmaker with documentarian tendencies. Red Rooms is his third narrative feature.

Filmography: Nadia, Butterfly (2020); Fake Tattoos (2017)

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Namesake

Dir. Eileen Francis & Evan Adams
76 min

Powell River... named for Israel Wood Powell, a 19th century politician and a man of his time, an advocate for residential schools and the Indian Act. The Tla'amin Nation asks the city to consider changing its name, a request which sparks intense debate.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

My Own Private Idaho

Dir. Gus Van Sant
103 min

Gus Van Sant's poetic and whimsical portrait of two young gay hustlers on the streets of Portland (Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix) was a triumph of the emerging New Queer Cinema.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Delicatessen

Dir. Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet
99 min

Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet collaborated with Marc Caro on their first film, a breathlessly inventive and unexpectedly charming comedy about two young lovers evading a cannibal butcher in a post-apocalyptic France.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Mistura

Dir. Ricardo de Montreuil
97 min

This foodie film from Peru tells the story of a newly single socialite reinventing herself — and the local cuisine — after her husband has left her for a younger woman. Along the way, she finds support from unexpected places...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

Everybody to Kenmure Street

Dir. Felipe Bustos Sierra
95 min

This rousing documentary (100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) never puts a foot wrong as it recreates a tense, prolonged stand-off between the police and the citizens of Glasgow when an Immigration Enforcement squad attempt to arrest two men from their homes.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Coastal Jazz & VIFF Present: Lina Nyberg Live Score: The Norrtull Gang
The Norrtull Gang film image; group of people collected on the floor

Coastal Jazz & VIFF Present: Lina Nyberg Live Score: The Norrtull Gang

81 min

This collaboration with Coastal Jazz brings together a proto-feminist silent film from the early 1920s with a new live score written and performed by Swedish singer-composer Lina Nyberg with stellar local a string quartet.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema